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DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 






David DuBose Gaillard 



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COMPILED AND PUBLISHED BY THE THIRD 

UNITED STATES VOLUNTEER 

ENGINEERS 



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SAINT LOUIS 

1916 






By T-^nsfsr 

APR 1 11917 



In Loving Memory of 

Our Regimental Commander in the Spanish War 

and His Noble Wife 

Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers 






Foreword 

At the annual meeting of the Third United States 
Volunteer Engineers held in St. Louis in May, 1914, it 
was voted to publish a memorial of Col. David DuBose 
Gaillard, who had been their regimental commander in 
the Spanish War. The Committee appointed to discharge 
this task collected, insofar as was possible, the various 
articles and tributes that had appeared in print following 
Col. Gaillard's death and received many letters from 
men who had been associated with Col. Gaillard in his 
lifetime. 

The Committee was fortunate in securing the assist- 
ance of Miss Ellen Bates of St. Louis, niece of General 
John C. Bates, in editing the material secured. The 
constant aid and advice rendered by Dr. A. E. Bostwick, 
Public Librarian of St. Louis, from the inception of the 
undertaking to the reading of the final proof, has been 
invaluable. The kindly co-operation of Mrs. Gaillard was 
a very great aid to the Committee at each Stage of the 
work. The Committee begs to acknowledge the cordial 
assistance rendered by each of the officers and associates 
whose contributions appear in the following pages. 

E. J. Spencer 
John L. VanOrnum 
W. J. Hardee 
John A. Laird 
H. Linton Reber 
J. W. Black 
Luther Ely Smith 

Committee 



Table of Contents 

Page 

Sketch of Col. Gaillard's Life 5 

Gaillard as an Engineer— by Edger jadwin 23 

Culebra Cut (now Gaillard Cut) 39 

Gaillard as a Soldier— by Stephen m. Foote 49 

Official Actions Taken upon the Death of Col. 

Gaillard 55 

Tributes 69 

Editorial Appreciation 91 

Contemporary View of Col. Gaillard upon his 
Appointment to the Isthmian Canal Commis- 
sion (1907) 133 

The Funeral— by Stephen M. Foote 143 

The Gaillard Memorials 151 

Some Official Letters Relating to Col. Gaillard's 

Earlier Work 161 

Chronology 173 

Bibliography 178 

Index, 183 

List of Illustrations 

Col. David DuBose Gaillard opposite page 1 

'84 (West Point) Tablet " 155 

Tablet in Huguenot Church, Charles- 
town, S. C 156 

The Gaillard Arms " 8 



DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

A Brief Sketch of His Life 



"Peace hath her victories 
No less renown' d than War" . . 

— Milton, ' 'Sonnet to the Lord General Cromwell' ' 



DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

That Col. David DuBose Gaillarcl should have 
chosen a career in the service of his country is but 
the logical result of his ancestry. The best tradi- 
tions America has to give her sons — pride of service 
and great abilities and success in achievement — 
were his birthright. 

ANCESTRY 

Colonel Gaillard comes of distinguished ancestry, 
both Huguenot and English. 

In the records of the family in France we see 
displayed the same courage and fidelity to lofty 
ideals that they have shown here. 

In the Thirteenth Century the name of one an- 
cestor is found, with other knights of Languedoc, 
enrolled in the catalogue as "Defenders of the 
Faith" under Raymond, Comte de Toulouse, 
against Simon de Montfort, emissary of Pope 
Honorius. 

Froissart gives John Gaillard as at the battle of 
the Soissons on the Aisne in 1363. In 1616 another 
Gaillard commanded a ship of the Protestant Party 
in a battle off the mouth of the Charente. He was 
taken prisoner, and refusing to recant was con- 
ducted to Bordeaux and there "broken on the 
wheel. ' ' 



After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 
1685 many Huguenots for "conscience sake" fled 
from France, and among those on the "Liste" we 
find these two of Colonel Gaillard's ancestors: 

"Pierre Gaillard, ne a Cherveux en Poitou, fils de 
Pierre Gaillard et de Jacquette Jolain" and 

"Isaac DuBose, de Dieppe en Normandie, fils de 
Louis DuBose et de sa f emme Anne. ' ' 

They came in 1686 to the English Province of 
South Carolina and settled in the Santee Country. 
To show their allegiance to their new country, they 
became English subjects; many even translated 
their names, which soon were to be found amongst 
the most influential in the Colony. 

Three of Colonel Gaillard's ancestors served in 
Francis Marion's Brigade as officers during the 
Revolutionary War — his great -great -great -grand- 
fathers, Gen. Richard Richardson and Capt. Peter 
Gaillard of the Rocks, and his great-great-grand- 
father, Samuel DuBose of Santee, who was Marion's 
adjutant. 

Col. Richard Richardson, his great-great-grand- 
father, a son of Gen. Richard Richardson, served in 
the regular army. 

A collateral ancestor, John Gaillard, was from 
1804 to 1826 in the United States Senate. He was 
five times elected to the Senate, presiding over that 
body for fourteen years. Nine times he was elected 
president pro tempore, and three times he filled va- 
cancies caused by the deaths of Gerry and Clinton 
and the absence of Tompkins. His service termi- 
nated only with his death. 

Theodore Gaillard, brother of John Gaillard, was 
educated in England. In 1808 he was made Judge 

8 




THE GAILLARD ARMS 



of the Courts of Chancery, General Sessions and 
Common Pleas, and was Speaker of the House of 
South Carolina. 

Colonel Gaillard was the fifth of his name to 
enter West Point.* 

During the Civil War Colonel Gaillard 's father 
and six uncles gave their services to their State, in 
the Confederate Cause.f 

On his mother's side his ancestry is equally dis- 
tinguished, going back to the Huguenot emigre, 
Isaac DuBose, on the paternal side, and to the 
Richardsons on the maternal. 

Gen. Richard Richardson, mentioned above, his 
great-great-great-grandfather, was an officer under 
the British in the Colonial service and did such gal- 
lant service in the Cherokee wars in 1760-61 that in 
the South Carolina Gazette, Sept. 25, 1762, we 

*1. Daniel S. Gaillard, admitted in 1817, married while on 
leave, and was dropped Feb. 28, 1818. 

2. Warren Gaillard, admitted in 1817, graduated in 1821 and 
died in Pensacola while on duty. 

3. Daniel W. Gaillard, admitted in 1817, did not graduate. 

4. Peter C. Gaillard, admitted in 1831, graduated in 1835. 
Resigned in 1838. During Civil War he was Colonel in Confed- 
erate Army, serving with conspicuous gallantry at Battery Wag- 
ner, Secessionville and at Morris Island, where his left wrist and 
hand were shattered. 

5. David DuBose Gaillard, admitted in 1880, graduated in 
1884. 



1 1. Samuel Gaillard, his father, was Sergeant Major in 
Hampton's Legion. 

2. Richard Gaillard, Captain and Brigade Quartermaster 
under General Gregg. 

3. Alfred Gaillard was Captain 1st S. C. Artillery. 

4. Edmund Gaillard, Lieutenant 2nd S. C. under General 
Kershaw, was mortally wounded at Gettysburg. 

5. Isaac Gaillard served in the 6th S. C. under General 
Bratton. 

6. David St. Pierre DuBose, his mother's brother, was a 
Captain in Hampton's Legion. 



read that as a token of gratitude the citizens of St. 
Mark's Parish (afterward Clarendon, Colonel Gail- 
lard's birthplace) presented to him a handsome 
service of plate. 

He was a member of the Provincial Congress and 
of the Legislative Council in 1775. 

He served under Francis Marion, reaching the 
rank of brigadier general during the Kevolution, 
leading many successful expeditions against the 
Tories and British. In the latter part of the war he 
was taken prisoner and carried to Charleston. His 
influence was so great that Lord Cornwallis, fear- 
ing his opposition, proposed to him in the presence 
of his friends and family that he either unite him- 
self to the Royal Standard with carte blanche as to 
titles, offices and other gifts of the Crown, or sub- 
mit to the alternative of close confinement. His re- 
ply is authentically reported to have been : 

"I have from the best convictions of my mind 
embarked in a cause which I consider righteous and 
just. I have knowingly and willingly staked my life, 
family and property on the issue. I am well pre- 
pared to suffer or to triumph with it, but I would 
prefer a thousand deaths rather than to betray my 
country or to deceive my friends." 

The threatened alternative was rigorously en- 
forced, until with shattered health and death very 
near, he was allowed to return home to die. After 
interment the British General Tarleton had his body 
exhumed, his pretext being that he wished to ex- 
amine the face of a man of so determined a charac- 
ter. 

His son, Richard Richardson, was in 1776 made a 
captain in the Regular Army, serving under Col. 

10 



Thomas Sumter, and was promoted to a colonelcy 
later for "meritorious service." Colonel Richard- 
son's wife, Dorcas Neilson Richardson, Colonel 
Gaillard 's great-great-grandmother, was noted for 
her fearless bravery and patriotism, and is men- 
tioned among Mrs. Ellet's "Noted Women of the 
Revolution." Among their descendants have been 
three Governors Richardson and three Governors 
Manning of South Carolina. 

This was the ancestry of "Gaillard of Culebra," 
this inheritance of bravery, physical and moral, 
lofty ideals, with an unswerving devotion to duty, 
whether it lay on the winning or losing side. 



BOYHOOD 



David DuBose Gaillard, son of Samuel Isaac and 
Susan Richardson DuBose Gaillard, was born at 
Fulton P. 0., Sumter County, South Carolina, the 
summer home of his parents, September 4, 1859. 

Until 1872, with his parents and sisters, he lived 
with his grandfather, David St. Pierre DuBose, at 
his home in Clarendon. The fine character and high 
ideals of his grandfather served as an inspiration 
to him, and he ever held his memory dear, naming 
his only son "David St. Pierre," in his honor. 

The school there being very poor, in 1872 he left 
Clarendon and went to Winnsboro, Fairfield County, 
where he lived with his grandmother, Mrs. David 
Gaillard, and for three years attended Mount Zion 
institute. But his family, like many others, had 
lost their all for their loyalty to the Lost Cause, and 
in that pitiful struggle with poverty, which those 
early years of '70 brought to the Southern people, 

11 



it became necessary for him to do something for 
himself. 

His high sense of duty, already developed, im- 
pelled him to accept whatever he could get, which 
was a position as clerk in the general store of Flem- 
ing McMaster. 

There early and late he worked, doing whatever 
there was to be done, always with the same accuracy, 
zeal, light-heartedness and efficiency which he has 
shown in his later achievements. 

One of the leading public men in South Carolina 
at that time was R. Means Davis (who was in later 
years to become Colonel Gaillard's brother-in-law). 
A lawyer by profession, his interest in restoring 
educational advantages to the children of the 
stricken state was so great that he accepted the 
position of principal of Mt. Zion Institute in Winns- 
boro. He knew and was deeply interested in young 
Gaillard's struggles and ambitions. 

Professor Davis's younger brother, Henry, now 
Col. H. C. Davis, Artillery Corps, U. S. A., in 1878 
had successfully passed the examinations to West 
Point. The following year, learning of a competitive 
examination that was to be held for a West Point 
vacancy from the Congressional district of 
Hon. J. S. Richardson (Sumter), Professor Davis 
strongly advised young Gaillard to try for the 
appointment. The boy, needing no urging, gladly 
took out his neglected but not forgotten books. 

His mind was brilliant, taking in knowledge "in 
the whole" and seemingly already assimilated, so 
that when the examination was held under Professor 
Lelandj a West Pointer, and one-time professor at 
the Charleston, S. C, Citadel, he easily won. 

12 



Soon a cloud appeared on the horizon of his 
hopes, for someone had raised the question of his 
eligibility for appointment from Sumter, since he 
lived in Fairfield. 

This question was taken up by the law firm of 
H. A. Gaillard and R. Means Davis. They wrote 
to Colonel Richardson, who had cancelled the ap- 
pointment, but he was not convinced. Then R. 
Means Davis wrote to Robert T. Lincoln, Secretary 
of War, and immediately came the reply that the 
minor son takes the residence of the father. Con- 
vinced, Colonel Richardson renewed the appoint- 
ment and young Gaillard left the store and went 
seriously to work on his studies. His old-time 
friend, Prof. R. Means Davis, now principal of 
Mount Zion, assisted him in every way, even letting 
him teach some of the classes, laughingly saying 
there was no better way of studying geography and 
history than by teaching them. One of his classes 
was "B" third, made up of all the incorrigibles and 
ineligibles of "A" third. 

Later he left Winnsboro, and with money saved 
from his slender salary as a clerk, he entered a 
preparatory school near West Point, at Highland 
Falls. These two young men from South Carolina, 
Davis and Gaillard, were among the first native 
Southerners to enter West Point after the Civil 
War. 

Gaillard successfully passed the entrance exam- 
inations at West Point, and entered as cadet in 
September, 1880, although handicapped by lack of 
preparation. Nevertheless, he was graduated No. 5 
in a class of 31, which is said to have been one of the 
most brilliant classes ever graduated from the Point. 

13 



Gaillard, who was tall and slender, and his room- 
mate, W. L. Sibert of Alabama, who was a giant, 
were known by their classmates as "David and Go- 
liath." His own forename thus became also a very 
appropriate nickname. "David" and "Goliath" 
met later in Panama, as members of the Commission. 

OFFICER IN THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS 

Gaillard was commissioned Second Lieutenant 
of Engineers on September 15, 1884. 

His first duty as a commissioned officer was in the 
Service School of Engineering at Willets Point, 
N. Y., graduating in 1887. From the Engineering 
School he was sent to Florida on river and harbor 
work, and then, but seven years out of West Point, 
he was appointed a member of the International 
Commission for the establishment of the boundary 
between the United States and Mexico. 

In 1887 he was married to Miss Katherine Ross 
Davis of Columbia, South Carolina, sister of Prof. 
R. Means Davis, the friend and adviser who had 
been so potent in shaping his career for West Point 
and the Army. A son, David St. Pierre Gaillard, now 
an electrical engineer, was born January 25, 1890. 

A brief return to regular duty in connection with 
the defenses of Fortress Monroe was followed by an 
assignment in charge of the Washington Aqueduct 
and local water supply of the City of Washington. 
The Department of State, mindful of the young 
engineer's Mexican work, again borrowed him for 
service, this time in Alaska, upon the survey of the 
Portland Channel, a mission of international signifi- 
cance. 



14 



COMMANDER IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 

When the Spanish- American War began in 1898, 
Colonel Gaillard, then a Captain of Engineers, at 
the request of General James F. Wade, was assigned 
April 28 to duty as Chief Engineer on his staff. At 
that time it was thought that General Wade would 
lead the expeditionary forces to Cuba. A different 
plan, however, was finally adopted, and General 
Shafter was placed in command of the expedition. 
Captain Gaillard was with the forces at Tampa 
during those trying days of uncertainty, when the 
troops were embarking one day, in anticipation of 
immediate sailing, and disembarking the next, until, 
on June 7, 1898, he was appointed Colonel of the 
Third Regiment of United States Volunteer En- 
gineers. Four days later he accepted the appoint- 
ment and immediately began the difficult task of 
securing officers and men of the requisite skill and 
ability for a regiment of this character. So well 
were his plans laid that barely a month elapsed 
before the regiment, whose members were recruited 
largely from the South, was mustered into service 
at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. After several 
weeks of active military and engineering training 
at various camps in the United States, the regiment 
was sent to Cuba with the army of occupation. One 
battalion went to each of the cities of Cienfuegos, 
Pinar del Rio and Matanzas, and rendered services 
of a high order in a great variety of engineering 
fields, civil, mechanical, sanitary and hydraulic. 
Returning to the United States via Savannah, the 
regiment was mustered out at Fort McPherson, Ga., 
May 17, 1899. 

15 



The regiment possesses a very unusual record. 
The standard achieved by the commanding officer 
in developing this body of men is indicated by 
Gen. J. C. Bates, who in 1905 wrote to Colonel 
Gaillard, "As Colonel of the Third Engineers, 
United States Volunteers, you commanded, if not 
the best, one of the best regiments I have ever 
known." More at length, Gen. James H. Wilson 
comments as follows: "The regiment was made up 
of fine officers, many of whom were well educated 
and experienced civil engineers, and of capable non- 
commissioned officers and men from similar callings 
in civil life. Under Colonel Gaillard the regiment 
soon took shape as one of the best in discipline, sol- 
dierly behavior and efficiency in the army. It served 
at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., Lexington, Ky., at 
Macon, Ga., and afterwards in the Departments of 
Matanzas, Santa Clara and Pinar del Rio, Cuba, for 
nearly a year, during the whole of which time it rose 
steadily in the esteem of its commanding officers as 
a model of what an American Regiment should be. 
It rendered most valuable service at all times in 
surveys, scientific investigations, in local explora- 
tions and sanitary work at Matanzas, Cardenas, 
Colon, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos and Pinar del Rio for 
the lasting benefit of the nascent Cuban Republic. 

"The behavior of this regiment and its officers 
was a constant example for the admiration and the 
emulation of the Cubans and to the credit of the 
intervening Government. It was absolutely free 
from rowdyism, drunkenness and the rude assump- 
tion of authority, which too frequently character- 
ized the behavior of other regiments. It at no time 
assumed an attitude of domination or superiority, 

16 



but whether in camp, on the march or on leave, al- 
ways behaved toward the Cubans as though it re- 
garded them as friendly allies and in no sense as 
alien or hostile people. The force and benefit of 
this behavior can be fully appreciated when it is 
recalled that the Central Department of Matanzas 
and Santa Clara was not only the first to become 
thoroughly pacified, but remained so till the new 
Republic was organized, and that no influence did 
more to bring about this desirable and satisfactory 
condition of affairs than the worthy example of the 
Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers and its masterful 
and accomplished Colonel. It is the training and 
character imparted to such regiments by the West 
Point education and discipline that make them so 
creditable to our civilization at large and point so 
clearly to the true means of organizing a national 
reserve and of utilizing the military strength of the 
country in case of actual need. 

"While the foreign service of this admirable 
regiment lasted less than a year, it will be a matter 
of pride to both its officers and men all their lives." 

FURTHER ENGINEER WORK— "WAVE ACTION" 

After the regiment was mustered out, Colonel 
Gaillard served for a time as assistant to the En- 
gineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia, 
and in 1901 was placed in charge of river and har- 
bor improvements on Lake Superior. 

To this period belongs his research into the aspect 
of "Wave Action Upon Engineering Structures." 
Gen. James H. Wilson says of this work: 

"Later, when stationed at Duluth, in charge of 

17 



river and harbor works in that region, he threw him- 
self, heart and soul, into the questions before him, 
and soon found himself confronted with practical 
and scientific questions affecting the stability of 
engineer structures exposed to 'wave action,' that 
had never been satisfactorily solved. 

"With characteristic determination and thor- 
oughness he set about the investigation of wave 
action and the theories applicable thereto. He soon 
discovered that the investigations of his predeces- 
sors in that field had been far from exhaustive ; that 
too much attention had been paid to deep-water 
waves and not enough to the effects of shallow 
waves ; that the books in the reference libraries were 
confined in most cases to special questions or to 
particular phases of wave action, or were so widely 
scattered as to be practically inaccessible or far tov 
complicated for working engineers. 

"While the author claims but little credit for 
the mathematical treatment of the subject, the work 
simplifies the whole method of procedure and con- 
stitutes a distinct step forward. It is recognized by 
the profession everywhere as of the highest value 
in this complex branch of engineering. But this is 
not all. In his original investigations, Colonel 
Gaillard not only works out step by step the proper 
mathematical deductions, but also devised the orig- 
inal diaphragm dynamometer with gauges and 
clockwork mechanism which enabled him to make 
correct observations of wave action in all situations, 
and to record the same with certainty and precision. 

"He finished his work upon this subject while 
stationed at Vancouver Barracks in 1903, and early 
in 1905 it was approved by the Chief of Engineers 

18 



and printed for the use of engineer officers. It is a 
monument to his mathematical talents and his 
ability as an engineer." 

ON THE GENERAL STAFF 

When the General Staff of the Army was estab- 
lished, Colonel Gaillard was detailed to that body 
and served successively in the Department of the 
Columbia, in the Northern Division, in the Army 
War College, and as Assistant Chief of Staff and 
Chief of Military Information Division in the sec- 
ond occupation of Cuba. 

AT PANAMA 

In 1907 the task of digging the Panama Canal was 
turned over to the Army. On March 22, Colonel 
Gaillard was appointed a member of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission. He served as supervisory en- 
gineer in charge of dredging harbors, of building 
the necessary breakwaters and all excavations in the 
Canal prism, except that incidental to lock and dam 
construction, April, 1907, to June, 1908; and as 
Division Engineer of the Central Division, includ- 
ing the famous Culebra Cut (now Gaillard Cut), 
from July, 1908, to the date of his death. A more 
extended account of his work on the Isthmus has 
been prepared by Col. Edgar Jadwin for this me- 
moir, and will be found on pages 23-38, under the 
heading, "Gaillard as an Engineer." 

Upon their arrival on the Isthmus in 1907, Colonel 
and Mrs. Gaillard at once established their home at 
Culebra, in the Canal Zone, and adapted themselves 
to their new environment. Mr. Edward B. Clark (a 

19 



classmate of Colonel Gaillard at West Point), writ- 
ing in The St. Louis Times, October 6, 1913, during 
Colonel Gaillard 's illness, thus described their 
home : 

"On the hill at Culebra stands the residence of 
Lieut. -Col. David DuB. Gaillard, the landslide con- 
queror and the digger of the great Culebra Cut. 
The jungle had been cut away when the engineer's 
quarters were built. The place was as bare as the 
peak of an Arctic mountain. Under the directing 
care and the fine perception of Mrs. Gaillard, their 
home in a season or two was embowered in tropical 
growth, with a softened color scheme which I have 
never seen equaled." 

The world-wide interest in the great work at- 
tracted many visitors to the Isthmus. Engineers, 
artists, public officials, travelers from home and 
abroad, under Colonel Gaillard's trained and kindly 
guidance, when his official and professional duties 
would permit, saw and understood the stupendous 
miracles that were slowly and surely being wrought 
on the Isthmus. Mrs. Gaillard was a charming 
hostess and many were the visitors who enjoyed the 
hospitality generously offered at their home; and 
the circle of their friends, thus widened, brought 
back to them a constant stream of delightful mes- 
sages. 

ILLNESS AND DEATH 

Colonel Gaillard came to the United States in 
May, 1913, for a short vacation. He returned to 
Panama, sailing on the 26th of June, arriving there 
on July 2d. He finished his annual report and at- 

20 



tended to other matters relating to Canal work. His 
health, however, had begun to fail, and within the 
month he suffered a nervous breakdown. On July 
15, Mrs. Gaillard, who had just arrived in Panama 
from the States, noticed that he was quite ill, and 
on July 26 he went into Ancon Hospital. On August 
8, with Mrs. Gaillard, his son, Pierre, and Dr. 
Charles Mason, Colonel Gaillard sailed for the 
United States. The party arrived at New York on 
August 16 and went at once to the Henry Phipps 
Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. 
The physician there diagnosing an intercranial 
growth, he went September 1 to the Peter Bent 
Brigham Hospital in Boston, where Doctor Harvey 
dishing operated, but with no beneficial results. 
He returned to the Johns Hopkins Hospital October 
1, and after three months of total unconsciousness, 
died there, December 5, 1913. 



21 



GAILLARD AS AN ENGINEER 

By Edgar Jadwin, Lieutenant-Colonel, Corps of En- 
gineers, U. S. A. 

[Late Major and Lieutenant Colonel Third U. S. Volunteer 
Engineers; Division Engineer, Chagres Division (1907-1908), un- 
der Colonel Gaillard in the Department of Excavation and Dredg- 
ing; Resident Engineer, Atlantic Division (1908-1911), under Col. 
W. L. Sibert, in charge of Dredging and Shops, Design and 
Construction of Colon Breakwater, and (1910-1911) quarrying 
and transporting rock and sand for Gatun Locks.] 



GAILLARD AS AN ENGINEER 

Colonel Gaillard received the education and train- 
ing usual for an engineer officer of the Army. After 
graduation from West Point, in the Class of 1884, 
and assignment to the Corps of Engineers, he took 
the post-graduate course at the Engineer School of 
Application with credit. 

From then until he reported in Panama, his ex- 
perience was unusually varied. Part was on river 
and harbor work, some on the Atlantic Coast in Flor- 
ida and some on the Great Lakes at Duluth, a tour in 
charge of the Washington Aqueduct which carries 
the water supply for the City of Washington and 
District of Columbia, a reconnaissance and survey 
on the boundary between Alaska and British Colum- 
bia, and still another tour as a member of the com- 
mission establishing the western half of the boun- 
dary between Mexico and the United States. At the 
outbreak of the Spanish War, he was selected for 
duty first as an engineer officer on the staff of a 
Corps Commander, and later as the Colonel of our 
beloved regiment where, as we all know, his work 
was of the highest possible order. His river and har- 
bor work was likewise of the best. In connection 
with the latter he made time to conduct a series of 
original experiments concerning wave motion and 

25 



wrote what is now the standard technical work on 
that intricate subject. 

While having a reasonable amount of the river 
and harbor work which forms so large a part of the 
experience of most officers of his age, he was, on ac- 
count of exceptional fitness, selected for many special 
details. In addition to his high character, general 
ability and indefatigable industry, which were com- 
bined with a sunny geniality and a joyous sense of 
humor, he was possessed of a most unusual power 
of accurate observation. These qualities made him 
especially valuable for work along untrodden paths. 
His experience on all these lines developed his na- 
tural traits and produced a man peculiarly adapted 
for the Isthmian work. 

Upon the resignation of Mr. John F. Stevens, Pres- 
ident Roosevelt placed the control of the Panama, 
Canal work in the Army Engineers, appointing 
Lieut.-Col. George W. Goethals, Maj. D. D. Gaillard, 
later Lieutenant-Colonel, and Maj. W. L. Sibert, now 
Lieutenant Colonel, as members of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission. Upon assuming control, Colonel 
Goethals divided the main construction work into 
two departments, one, the Department of Dredging 
and Excavation which was placed in charge of Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Gaillard, and the other that of Locks 
and Dams, placed in charge of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Sibert, a former class-mate and room-mate at West 
Point and a close friend of Colonel Gaillard. The 
Department of Dredging and Excavation comprised 
two dredging divisions and one dry excavation divi- 
sion. The Pacific Dredging Division handled the work 
at the south end of the canal, from the Pacific Locks 
to the Pacific Ocean; the Colon Division, that from 

26 



the Gatun Locks to the Atlantic Ocean ; and the Cu- 
lebra Division the dry excavation work through the 
nine miles constituting the backbone of the continent. 
There was at the time no work being done along the 
twenty-three miles from Gamboa to Gatun where 
the course of the Chagres Kiver coincides with that 
of the canal. Colonel Gaillard immediately planned 
for the commencement of work on this stretch and 
arranged for the detail of the writer, who had been 
junior Lieutenant-Colonel in the 3rd U. S. Volunteer 
Engineers, as Division Engineer of the new organi- 
zation to be known as the Chagres Division. 

One of the first things the writer heard on the 
Isthmus was a discussion by Colonel Gaillard of the 
high costs of excavation on the canal and a state- 
ment of his desire to reduce them. He referred to 
the opinion held by some that the French machinery 
was of little value. With his quick perception and 
keen observation he had seen that this sentiment 
might go too far and that if practicable, greater use 
should be made of the French machinery. He point- 
ed out the great quantity of excavation which had 
been done by the French, 24,000,000 cubic yards in 
Culebra Cut alone, according to French records. 
M. Bunau-Varilla gives the total excavation in any 
one month on the canal under the French as 1,424,- 
000 cubic yards in January, 1886. These quantities 
seem larger even now when one recalls how deficient 
the French sanitary system must have been com- 
pared to the one which was organized and main- 
tained by General Gorgas and which rendered our 
continuity of effort possible. 

Colonel Gaillard suggested that the Chagres Divi- 
sion would afford a field in which work could be start- 

27 



ed more quickly by making use of the French machin- 
ery than by waiting for the acquisition of new ma- 
chinery, and that sufficiently low costs of excavation 
per cubic yard could probably be obtained to justify 
such a line of action. When the situation was de- 
veloped his ideas on the subject were found to have 
been correct. While practicable to secure for the 
excavation a dozen American steam shovels, only 
three modern locomotives could be obtained. Most 
of the hauling was therefore done by forty-six old 
French locomotives. A large percentage of the 
equipment also consisted of old French cars. 

Nevertheless, in six months from the time work 
was started the cost per cubic yard of excavation 
on this division was less than on the Culebra Divi- 
sion, where the more modern plant had long been in 
use. While many elements of course contributed to 
this result the fact remains conspicuous that Colonel 
Gaillard had promptly recognized the key of the sit- 
uation. It seems more than appropriate that so sub- 
stantial a tribute to the value of the French work 
as well as the essential triumph over Culebra Cut 
should be directed by an American with French 
blood in his veins. 

On July 1, 1908, Colonel Goethals effected a gen- 
eral re-organization of the force by which the depart- 
ments were abolished, the small divisions consoli- 
dated and the construction work re-divided into 
three general geographical divisions, one comprising 
the Atlantic Locks and the work north of them with 
Colonel Sibert as Division Engineer, another the 
Pacific Locks and the work south of them with Mr. 
Sidney B. Williamson (at one time a Captain in the 
3rd U.S. Volunteer Engineers) as Division Engineer, 

28 



and the third the excavation work between the Atlan- 
tic and Pacific locks. This was called the Central 
Division and Colonel Gaillard was appointed its Divi- 
sion Engineer. The writer was at that time trans- 
ferred to the Atlantic Division under Colonel Sibert's 
orders and placed in charge of the dredging and shops 
constituting the old Colon Division, in addition to the 
design and construction of the Colon breakwater, 
and still later of the supply of sand and stone for 
the Gatun Locks. Enough was seen of Colonel Gail- 
lard's work, however, to know that he was indefat- 
igable in his efforts to secure the best possible re- 
sults, that while ever just and considerate of those 
working for him, he gave the closest attention to 
every detail of his work and was continually en- 
gaged in analysis of the cost of one or another of 
the items of his work and the development of some 
improvement in plan or service. 

An incident indicating his close personal observa- 
tion may not be inappropriate. The question was 
raised whether certain rock would stand or disinte- 
grate if used as a covering for part of the Gatun 
Dam, and Major Hoffman in charge of the Gatun Dam 
work under Colonel Sibert had been making an in- 
vestigation. A year later Major Hoffman stated that 
although he had asked many men he had secured 
very little positive information until he asked Col- 
onel Gaillard. He was much impressed by the fact 
that the latter at once directed his attention to 
shovel marks on the rock of an old tunnel made by 
the French as possibly the best evidence to be ob- 
tained on the Isthmus of the effect of the weather 
upon rock of the character in question. 

As previously indicated, this faculty of close ob- 

29 



servance and analysis made Colonel Gaillard pre- 
eminently the man for cutting the backbone of the 
continent. The work was making good progress when 
he took hold of it and therefore there was no room for 
£he development of many new engineering princi- 
ples. The main problems rather resulted from the 
magnitude of the work. The great service to be ren- 
dered was to advance and accomplish it more rapidly 
and more cheaply. No man in the United States 
could have done this better than Colonel Gaillard. 

The central division extended from Pedro Miguel 
Locks to Gatun Dam and Locks, a distance of thirty- 
three miles, and embraced the entire summit level of 
the Panama Canal. The Culebra Cut embraced the 
greater part of the dry excavation in the Division 
and is nine miles in length, of which a little over 
seven and one-lialf miles has a bottom width of three 
hundred feet and a depth of forty-five feet. The re- 
mainder of the canal has a width in excess of three 
hundred feet. 

The engineering problems connected with the 
work of the division were handled by the engineer- 
ing force, under a resident engineer. In addition, 
there was a superintendent of transportation, who 
handled all transportation matters, and a superin- 
tendent of the water and air service, who kept all 
shovels, drills, pumps, etc., connected with water and 
air mains. The work involved may be inferred from 
the fact that over 1,000 loaded and empty trains have 
been handled in the Central Division in a nine-hour 
day, and an average of two miles of water and air 
pipe were laid and two miles taken up for every 
working day in the year. 

The maximum monthly output under American 

30 



management in the Central Division before Colonel 
Gaillard assumed charge was 815,270 cubic yards; 
the figures in March, 1909, were 2,054,088 cubic 
yards — an increase of 152 per cent. The greatest 
number of shovels in use at one time in the Culebra 
Cut alone was 43. 

To handle this amount of material required the 
services of 115 locomotives and 2,000 cars, giving 
about 160 loaded trains per day to the dumps, which 
on the average were about twelve miles distant; the 
haul one way varying, however, from about one to 
thirty-three miles. To serve properly the trains and 
shovels employed in excavation work in the cut, al- 
though the latter is less than nine miles in length, 
about 100 miles of track were required, or an aver- 
age of over nine parallel tracks at all points of the 
cut. Reductions in transportation expense were 
made by improving tracks, decreasing grades, in- 
creasing the number of cars in a train, and by im- 
provements in organization. He replaced the old 
system under which trains generally waited at shov- 
els until loaded, by a new one under which the trains 
while in motion were partially loaded as they passed 
the various shovels and stopped to have their load 
completed at the last shovel on the line. Whereas 
under the old system the slowest shovel sometimes 
determined the rate for all, under the new system 
the trains were kept as much as possible with the 
shovels which were ready to give the largest output, 
whether as a result of being in best condition, best 
operated, or working in the best material. When he 
took the work, a part of the transportation system 
considered very important was a large yard near 
Las Cascadas, to which a large part of the loaded 

31 



cars were hauled from the cut and later to the dumps. 
Empties were similarly treated. After a careful an- 
alysis of the operation of the yard he concluded that 
while such a yard undoubtedly had its place in a 
large transportation system handling miscellaneous 
freight for many destinations, its net result where 
the principal commodity was excavated material 
was to delay rather than to accelerate the work. It 
was soon eliminated and trains went through from 
the shovel to the dump. 

The maximum number of drills in use at any time 
in the Culebra Cut was 377, of which 221 were tripod 
drills and 156 were well drills. With these drills, an 
aggregate of over 90 miles of holes have been drilled 
in a single month. 

In the earlier stages of the work, accidents result- 
ing from the use of dynamite were unfortunately 
not uncommon, and one of the first steps taken un- 
der Colonel Gaillard's management was to require a 
strict inspection of the handling of dynamite and the 
loading and firing of holes. In spite of every pre- 
caution, it was found impossible to avoid a consid- 
erable number of miss-fires, and a study was made, 
with the assistance of the electrical and mechanical 
engineer, with a view of endeavoring to locate defi- 
nitely the cause of these miss-fires. 

As a result of a long series of experiments, it was 
conclusively shown that by far the greater number 
of miss-fires were due to the fact that the holes had 
been wired "in series." When the fuses were con- 
nected "in parallel" and fired by means of the ordi- 
nary electric light current, not a single failure of a 
fuse was noted in a test comprising several hundred 
fuses. 

32 



The results of this investigation were so convinc- 
ing that all holes were later wired "in parallel" and 
miss-fires were almost wholly eliminated, although it 
is scarcely necessary to state that accidents from 
individual carelessness, from flying stones, or from 
other causes, will always occur in the extensive use 
of dynamite, no matter what precautions may be 
adopted. It is, however, indicative of the efficiency 
obtained to state that although during three and a. 
quarter years, in work under Colonel Gaillard's 
charge, over 20,000,000 pounds of dynamite w r ere 
used in blasting, only eight men were killed, three 
of whom failed to go to a safe distance and were 
killed by flying stones, and two by miscounting the 
number of shots which had gone off in a "dobe" 
group, and approaching the group before the last 
shot had exploded. 

The amount of dynamite in tons of 2240 pounds in 
the Central Division for the months of August, Sep- 
tember, and October, for the years, 1908, 1909, and 
1910, was as follows: 

1908 974 

1909 953 

1910 543 

The amount of rock excavated during the same 
period was: 

1908 2,977,415 

1909 3,347,301 

1910 3,369,064 

From this it will be seen that only 56 per cent as 
much dynamite was used in 1910 as for the same 
months in 1908, and 57 per cent as much as was used 
for the same months in 1909. The amount required 

33 



was latterly reduced to one pound of dynamite to 
about every two and a quarter yards of material 
blasted. 

The total saving in cost of dynamite for August, 
September, and October, 1910, as compared with cor- 
responding months in 1908, was 431.03 tons (2240 
lbs.) which amounted in value to $115,939.00. Be- 
sides the first cost of the dynamite there was also the 
saving in the cost of handling, loading, and shooting. 

Much has been heard of the Panama slides. Dur- 
ing the early stages of the work by the United States, 
there was but little movement of material into the 
canal from outside of the prism, and when such 
movement began, it was due almost entirely to slides 
caused by the slipping of the top layer of clay or 
earth upon a smooth sloping surface of some harder 
material, the layer of slipping clay in such cases 
varying in thickness from 10 to 40 feet. 

The largest slide of this character is the Cucaracha 
slide on the east bank of the canal, just south of Gold 
Hill, which embraced a total area of over forty-seven 
acres. This slide extends up the bank for a distance 
of some 1,900 feet from the axis of the canal, and 
originally had an approximate slope of about one 
vertical to seven horizontal. It first began to give 
serious trouble in the fall of 1907, and moved com- 
pletely across the canal, the toe of the slide advanc- 
ing for the first ten days at a uniform rate of about 
14 feet in twenty-four hours. All tracks in its path 
were covered or destroyed by its resistless motion, 
and the moving material actually rose up on the west 
bank to a height of about 30 feet. Its movement was 
singularly like that of a glacier. It was, in fact, a 
tropical glacier — of mud instead of ice — and stakes 

34 



aligned on its moving surface and checked every 24 
hours by triangulation, showed a movement which 
Colonel Gaillard stated to be in every respect sim- 
ilar to stakes on moving glaciers in Alaska upon 
which he had made observations in 1896. 

As the depth of the cut increased and the lateral 
support formerly afforded by the excavated material 
was removed, the great pressure of the superincum- 
bent banks caused the crushing and squeezing out of 
underlying layers of soft material, with a breaking, 
shearing and settling of the high banks and a corre- 
sponding elevation or ' ' humping ' ' of the bottom. In 
later years, slides or breaks of this character greatly 
exceeded those of the type represented by the Cuca- 
racha slide. The largest slide of this last type is on 
the west bank of the canal at Culebra, and covered 
an area of 75 acres. Up to October 1st, 1912, over 
7,500,000 cubic yards of material had been removed 
from this slide and fully 2,000,000 cubic yards then 
remained to be removed. 

As the result of several years experience, slides 
and breaks were handled with less inconvenience 
and interruption to other work than was the case in 
the earlier stages of operation. Yet, notwithstand- 
ing increased efficiency in handling them, they 
caused continual annoyance and interruption to 
work, and decreased the output and complicated the 
engineering problem; and while they presented no 
insurmountable obstacles to the completion of the 
work in the Culebra Cut, yet they were ever present 
sources of annoyance, hindrance and expense. Their 
effects were especially felt in the destruction, dis- 
placement or covering up of tracks, interference 
with drainage and air and water mains, requiring 

35 



large gangs to be kept continually at work in their 
vicinity. 

A conservative estimate indicates that within the 
8.8 miles of the Culebra Cut, fully 200 miles of track 
have been destroyed, covered up or have had to be 
built, solely on account of slides; and in one locality 
for nearly two years tracks had to be maintained on 
material moving at a rate varying from one or two 
inches to several feet per day, necessitating the con- 
stant presence of a track gang in order to permit the 
uninterrupted passage of trains. 

It will be seen from what precedes that when the 
Culebra Cut shall have been completed, not less than 
22 per cent of all material excavated by the United 
States will have been removed on account of slides, 
and that they will have added twenty-one or twenty- 
two million cubic yards to the amount of material 
to be excavated. 

During the period from April 12, 1907, to June 1, 
1913, the total amount of material excavated under 
the direct supervision of Colonel Gaillard aggre- 
gated 104,800,873 cubic yards;— about half the total 
amount of excavation (212,504,138) estimated as 
necessary to complete the entire canal. Of this 
amount over 88,000,000 cubic yards have been ex- 
cavated from the great Culebra Cut, including nearly 
19,000,000 cubic yards removed from the unprece- 
dented slides which did so much to complicate and 
increase the difficulties of the work. 

In addition to the above, 5,419,751 cubic yards of 
rock were supplied and hauled to Gatun, a distance 
of over 30 miles, for use in the construction of the 
Gatun Dam. 

For constructing the road-bed of the relocated 

36 



Panama Railroad 4,471,187 cubic yards of material 
were furnished and hauled an average distance of 
about 8 miles, and 151,580 cubic yards of hard rock 
were hauled from the Culebra Cut to the Mole at 
Colon, a distance of 35 miles. 

A dike to divert the currents from the approach 
channel dredged by the Pacific Division to the Bal- 
boa Docks, has been constructed from the mainland 
to Naos Island across a part of Panama Bay. This 
dike is 3.26 miles in length and contains 1,121,233 
cubic yards of rock. 

For use on the dam at Miraflores, and in making 
the back fill for the Pedro Miguel Lock, the Pacific 
Division was furnished with 175,125 cubic yards of 
material from Culebra Cut. To assist the Pacific 
Division in expediting the work being done on the 
Miraflores spillway 45,695 cubic yards of material 
were excavated there by the Central Division. 

The money value of Colonel Gaillard 's work to the 
Government of the United States may be best re- 
alized from the record of the cost of excavation in 
the Central Division, which includes the great Cule- 
bra Cut, and of which he took charge on April 12, 
1907. 

Exclusive of General and Administrative Expense 
above the division, and plant arbitrary, the division 
costs of excavation were as follows: 1908, 71 cents; 
1909, 55 cents; 1910, 54 cents; 1911, 49 cents; 1912, 
47 cents. 

The annual excavation has been in the neighbor- 
hood of 17,000,000 cubic yards. A saving of one cent 
per cubic yard means, therefore, for the year, a sav- 
ing of $170,000.00 to the Government. Had the 1912 
excavation cost the same as that of 1910 per cubic 

37 



yard, the expenditure would have been increased by 
$1,190,000 for the year. The conditions were essen- 
tially the same, and the saving can be attributed to 
excellent management of every detail that affects 
cost. 

While this great work of Colonel Gaillard's re- 
sulted in marked saving to the Government it was 
followed by a nervous breakdown on the eve of the 
completion of his work. 

The financial value of his work, however, is as 
nothing compared with the moral value of his clean 
life and the far-reaching influence for right living, 
thinking and working which has been impressed on 
so many men. He gave himself completely to his 
work and has left a record with a, ring which must 
appeal peculiarly to members of his beloved regi- 
ment, to his devoted family, his class, his Alma 
Mater, the Corps of which he was an honored mem- 
ber, the Army, the country, to all real men, and to a 
just and omniscient God. (May, 1914.) 



38 



CULEBRA CUT 

(Now"GaillardCut") 

(Extracts from articles and papers.) 



CULEBRA CUT 

The magnitude of the task of digging through the 
backbone of the Continent at Culebra was more 
thoroughly appreciated by engineers and scientists 
than by the general public and press, who impatient- 
ly insisted upon "seeing the dirt fly." A few of the 
many critical descriptions that have been written of 
the work at Culebra are given herewith : 

(From '84 Class Bulletin, West Point, July 1, 1914.) 

Culebra Cut was the third gigantic job for the 
engineering genius of the canal builders and the big 
man on it was Col. D. D. Gaillard. This piece of 
excavation alone cost more than eighty million dol- 
lars ; for over a hundred million cubic yards of dig- 
ging was required. Much of this was excavation 
through solid rock. A railroad would have tunneled 
through it, but the canal had to have an open cut 
nearly nine miles long through a mountain range. 

The spectacle of six thousand men in Culebra Cut 
operating forty-four steam shovels at one time and 
sending out one hundred and seventy-five trainloads 
of debris in a single day attracted engineering ex- 
perts from Europe and even from Japan. Without 
exception this great organization of Gaillard 's was 
the most perfect ever seen where so much machinery 
and so many men were involved. 

41 



The cut is three hundred feet wide at the bottom 
and averages one hundred and twenty feet in depth. 
The task of excavation was vastly increased when 
the sides began to cave in. To the average reader 
of newspaper cablegrams these ' ' slides ' ' were merely 
loose dirt slipping down the embankment; but the 
figures of two out of twenty-five slides will give a 
more accurate conception. In one slide on the west- 
ern bank seventy-five acres of earth glided off into 
the canal prism, and on the eastern bank fifty acres 
did the same thing. Before these two slides oc- 
curred Culebra Cut was eight hundred and forty 
feet wide at the top at this point; after the slides it 
was two thousand feet wide. 

(From "Battling With the Panama Slides," by William Joseph 
Showalter, in The National GeograpJUc Magazine for February, 
1914.) 

The weapons used by Nature in her efforts to 
confound the plans of the canal engineers have been 
slides and breaks in the banks of the canal, and 
effective weapons indeed have they proven. How, 
with them, she has stood between the canal army 
and the completion of the task to which it addressed 
itself, constitutes the most thrilling episode in the 
history of canal engineering. 

Over two hundred and fifty acres of ground 
lying outside of the intended banks of the canal, and 
containing over thirty million cubic yards of ma- 
terial, have swept, with silent but terrific force, 
down into the canal. Now this onslaught has de- 
moralized an entire railroad system ; now it has put 
the compressed air and water systems out of com- 
mission; now it has bottled up one end of Culebra 

42 



Cut with an avalanche of debris; now it has im- 
prisoned dirt trains and wrecked steam shovels. 
But with all the wreck and ruin and chaos there 
have been men with wills of iron who have met 
each new situation with a new spirit of determina- 
tion; men who have never permitted any catas- 
trophe to turn them aside from their ultimate pur- 
pose; men whose achievements in the face of un- 
precedented difficulties make a story as inspiring as 
anything in human history. 

No one who failed to visit the Isthmus during 
the construction period can understand the full im- 
port of the coming of these slides into Culebra 
Cut. With each passing year they have renewed 
and redoubled their attacks on the canal plans. 
They seem to be maneuvered by the hand of some 
great marshal and sent forth to the fray in every 
way calculated to put the canal engineers to dis- 
comfiture. 

Now they are quiescent, attempting to lull the 
engineers into a false security; now they make a 
feint, stopping short of an actual conflict ; now they 
come in the dead of night, spreading chaos and dis- 
rupting everything in whatever direction they 
move ; now they set up the appearance of being ren- 
dered thoroughly harmless by allowing dikes of 
basalt to peep out, which seem to tie them to the 
bowels of the earth, only to destroy the hopes 
which these dikes arouse in the hearts of the be- 
siegers, by shearing them off as if they were but 
pipe stems, and then flowing, unrestrained, into the 
cut. . . . 

It is no wonder that the lamented Colonel Gaillard 
lost his health and his life fighting them. 

43 



(From "The Panama Gateway," by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 
Secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission.) 

No one could say when the sun went down at 
night what the condition of the Cut would be when 
the sun rose the next morning. The work of months 
and years might be blotted out by an avalanche of 
earth or the toppling over of a small mountain 
of rock. It was a task to try men's souls, and it was 
one also to kindle in them a joy of combat which no 
repulse could chill, and a buoyant faith of ultimate 
victory which nothing could shake. From all quar- 
ters of the globe came engineers and others engaged 
in construction operations to view the struggle. 
They came in doubt often as to the outcome, but 
they went away with all doubt removed. * * 
They were not surprised, after witnessing this won- 
derful human machine at work, that slide after slide 
went into the Cut without causing the faintest 
shadow of uneasiness to anyone concerned and with- 
out delaying the final completion of the task. 

(Prom "South America" (1912), by James Bryce, author of 
"The American Commonwealth," British Ambassador at Wash- 
ington, 1907-1914 (now Viscount Bryce). Upon the completion of 
a period of seven years as Ambassador at Washington, Lord 
Bryce visited the Panama Canal and South America, embodying 
his observations in the volume named above.) 

In these forty miles of canal (or fifty if we reckon 
from deep water to deep water), the two most re- 
markable pieces of engineering work are the gigantic 
dam (with its locks) at Gatun, and the gigantic cut- 
ting at Culebra, each the hugest of its kind that the 
world has to show. . . . 

The great Culebra Cut is interesting not only to 
the engineer but also to the geologist, as being what 
he calls a Section. It is the deepest open cutting 

44 



anywhere in the world, and shows curious phe- 
nomena in the injection of igneous rocks, apparently 
very recent, among the loose sedimentary beds, 
chiefly clays and soft sandstones of the latest ter- 
tiary epoch. A troublesome result, partly of this 
intermixture, and partly of the friability and in- 
stability not only of the sedimentary strata, but 
also of some of the volcanic rocks, has been noted 
in the constant slips and slides of rock and earth 
down the sides of the cutting into the bed of the 
canal that is to be. This source of expense and de- 
lay was always foreseen by those who knew the 
character of the soil and the power of torrential 
tropical rains, and was long dwelt upon as a fatal 
objection to a sea level canal. It has caused even 
more delay and more expenditure than Avas ex- 
pected. But it has now been overcome, though to 
avert the risk of future damage to the work when 
completed, the engineers have been obliged to give 
a much lower slope to the sides of the cutting than 
was originally contemplated. 

The interior of the Culebra Cut presented dur- 
ing the period of excavation, a striking sight. With- 
in the nine miles of the whole cutting, two hundred 
miles of railroad track had been laid down side by 
side, some on the lowest level on terraces along 
which the excavating shovels were at work. Within 
the deepest part of the cutting, whose length is less 
than a mile, many hundreds of railroad construction 
cars and many thousands of men were at work, some 
busy in setting dynamite charges for blasting, some 
clearing away the rubbish scattered round by an 
explosion, some working the huge moving shovels 
which were digging into the softer parts of the hill 

45 



or were removing the material loosened by explo- 
sions, the rest working the trains of cars that were 
perpetually being made up and run out of the cut- 
ting at each end to dump the excavated material 
wherever it was needed somewhere along the line of 
the canal. Every here and there one saw little 
puffs of steam, some from the locomotives, some 
where the compressed air by which power was ap- 
plied to the shovels was escaping from the pipes, 
and condensing the vapor-saturated atmosphere. 

There is something in the magnitude and the 
methods of this enterprise which a poet might take 
as his theme. Never before on our planet have so 
much labor, so much scientific knowledge, and so 
much executive skill been concentrated on a work 
designed to bring the nations nearer to one another 
and serve the interests of all mankind. 

(From an article in The St. Louis Times, October S, 1913, by 
Edward B. Clark, Colonel Gaillard's classmate at West Point.) 

[On October 10, 1913, while Colonel Gaillard was at Johns 
Hopkins suffering under that nervous breakdown, which was so 
soon to prove fatal, plans were completed for turning the water 
into Culebra Cut. On the appointed day President Wilson, at 
Washington, pressed an electric button and the dam at Gamboa, 
on the Isthmus, was blown asunder, letting the waters of the 
Atlantic into the cut.] 

The explosives are ready, the mine drillings have 
been made and the train is laid to blow into de- 
struction the last land barrier which traverses the 
Isthmian waterway from bank to bank. Shortly 
the spark will be applied, the rock and earth em- 
bankment will disappear under the fires of explosion 
and the waters of Gatun Lake will pour into the Cu- 
lebra Cut which quickly will fill to the required level, 
and the way will be clear for the first ship to sail 
from ocean to ocean. 

46 



One of the tragedies of the canal is the serious 
illness of Lieut-Col. David DuB. Gaillard. The man 
who captured the landslides and dug the Culebra Cut 
cannot be present to witness the unchaining of the 
waters and the final proving of the integrity of his 
six years of labor under the tropical sun. 

Col. Gaillard, as the country already knows, is 
now in a hospital in the United States, having been 
stricken with a nervous disorder virtually on the day 
of his completion of one of the greatest works in the 
history of engineering. . . . 

In the near future, when ships pass through the 
Culebra Cut, the voyagers will see a high bank rising 
on either side covered with the green growth of the 
tropics. The clay and the rocks will be clothed more 
quickly than was the northern cliff which Bjornson 
pictured so vividly in its transformation. 

Looking on the banks, the passing traveler, un- 
less he knows the history of the canal, will think 
that his ship is making its way through a natural 
valley and perhaps all thought will be lost by the 
wayfarer of the travail, the time and the high en- 
gineering skill which it took to dig and to cut this 
commercial pathway through the continental divide. 

This work is the triumph of an American army 
officer, born in the State of South Carolina. En- 
gineers say it will go into history as one of the great 
labors of the age. When Lieutenant-Colonel Gail- 
lard took charge at the beginning of the work, he 
knew that he must overcome the landslides which 
were bound to start when the mountains through 
which he was to make his way showed that their 
footholds were becoming insecure. 

Gaillard made his way righting. Literally he was 

47 



obliged to shackle the feet of the mountains. He did 
it and the chaining is for all time. 

(From The Baltimore American, December 6, 1913.) 

Colonel Gaillard was the real builder of the Canal, 
but when Gamboa Dike was blown up and the wa- 
ters of the Atlantic and the Pacific met for the first 
time he lay unconscious in his bed in the hospital, 
unaware that President Wilson had pressed the but- 
ton that ignited the hundreds of pounds of dynamite, 
completing his work. The building of the canal was 
his cherished dream. His constant study and con- 
centration of mind on the work and the realization 
of the danger incurred by the thousands of men un- 
der him is thought to be the primary cause of his 
illness. Mrs. Gaillard said that many nights had 
been spent by the Colonel in studying methods that 
would prevent the landslides and the next morning 
he would be at work again. 



48 



GAILLARD AS A SOLDIER 

By Stephen M. Foote, Colonel Coast Artillery Corps, 

U. S. A. (Late Major Third U. S. Volunteer 

Engineers.) 



GAILLARD AS A SOLDIER 



At the time of his death, Gaillard was a member 
of the Isthmian Canal Commission, and be is known 
the world over as the Engineer who made the cut 
for the Great Canal through Culebra Mountain. 

In bis service as an engineer before the Spanish 
War he had assisted in determining two interna- 
tional boundaries — the Mexican and the Alaskan. 
After the Spanish War, while engaged in river and 
harbor work on the Great Lakes, he wrote a notable 
study on the effects of wave action in relation to en- 
gineering structures. 

It was while he was on the General Staff that he 
was selected as one of the members of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission. It will be remembered that it 
was President Roosevelt's desire to have the Pan- 
ama Canal built by civilian engineers and that the 
various engineers connected with that work were all 
celebrated in their profession and came from differ- 
ent parts of the country. As soon as one of these 
engineers was put in charge of the canal construc- 
tion, he became a marked man and great corpora- 
tions immediately sought his services, offering enor- 
mous salaries. In this way they succeeded in alien- 
ating several chief engineers from the canal. After 
the embarrassing changes thus resulting, the Presi- 
dent, early in 1907, decided to place the work in the 

51 



hands of Army Engineers. To insure against rad- 
ical changes due to the loss, for any reason, of the 
Chief Engineer, he decided to appoint a Commission 
of three engineers, with the idea of having two un- 
derstudies ready and competent to automatically 
take up the work of Chief Engineer if it should at 
any time be dropped by the Chairman of the Com- 
mission. Gaillard was one of the three so chosen. 
His part in the building of the canal for over six 
years continuously is worthy of all the praise that 
has been bestowed upon it. The story of his services 
on the canal can be properly told only by one who 
was there associated with him during those years. 

Gaillard 's abilities as an engineer and executive 
were so pronounced and have become so well known 
that his ability as a soldier has been overlooked. 
People generally do not know of his soldierly qual- 
ities, and yet it would be safe to venture that no 
achievement of his as an engineer gave him more 
pride and satisfaction than his service from June, 
1898, to May, 1899, as Colonel of the 3rd United 
States Volunteer Engineers. 

In his military as in his civil undertakings, Gail- 
lard never blindly relied upon bluff and self assur- 
ance. He had a keen perception of the responsibil- 
ities of any position he ever held, and while he re- 
alized to the full the difficulties before him, his active 
mind instantly sought the way out; he always rose to 
the occasion and enlisted not only his own abilities 
but those of his associates in overcoming the diffi- 
culties. 

While his regiment did not have occasion to enter 
an active campaign, it did splendid service in the re- 
generation of Cuba during the early months of 1899, 

52 



winning the most flattering encomiums from all who 
came in contact with any part of it. And it was able 
to do this because its colonel had from the first la- 
bored incessantly to make it an efficient regiment 
for any duty it might be called upon to perform. 

Gaillard was a good judge of men and knew for 
what purposes and to what extent he could rely upon 
his immediate subordinates. Within such limita- 
tions he gave them his confidence and was rarely at 
fault. As a consequence, he attained the unlimited 
confidence and unswerving loyalty of his officers and 
men. 

The camps of the 3rd Engineers in the Spanish 
War were models for all the troops around them. 
While in camp at Lexington, Kentucky, shortly after 
the regiment had been mustered into the service, the 
Colonel sought an opportunity to give his men target 
practice. Authority was secured, a target range ob- 
tained and the men given the practice. A perfectly 
natural thing to do, one might say, but it was a thing 
not generally done by the Volunteers at that time. 

As infantry, probably no regiment of its time was 
better drilled in camp and field, while in engineering 
of every description — military, railway, sanitary, 
topographical — it was perfectly at home. The mili- 
tary engineering it was necessary for the members of 
the regiment to learn by means of daily drills in that 
subject, but with so many of the officers and men 
professional civil engineers, they made apt pupils in 
every line of military engineering. 

While in camp at Macon, Georgia, in the fall of 
1898, the 3rd Engineers was given the delicate task 
of disarming a mutinous state volunteer regiment, 
which task was performed in a manner that brought 

53 



forth many expressions of praise from higher com- 
manders. 

In Cuba, the regiment was dispersed, the regimen- 
tal headquarters and one battalion going to Cienfue- 
gos, one battalion to Matanzas, and one to Pinar del 
Rio. Their work in Cuba was mostly of a construc- 
tive nature, and embraced roads, wharves, railroads, 
sanitation, surveying, etc., but their strictly military 
duties were not less important, as it became neces- 
sary for them to guard and care for a large number 
of Spanish prisoners awaiting repatriation. 

On its return from Cuba for muster out, the regi- 
ment was together for about three weeks at Fort Mc- 
Pherson, Georgia, and during this time there was a 
short drill and a parade daily, maintaining military 
discipline to the end. 

Furthermore, he took great pride in the good name 
of the regiment and instilled the same feeling in oth- 
ers. The regiment thus acquired in high degree that 
valuable asset, esprit de corps. So deep was this 
feeling that associations of officers and men of the 
3rd Engineers have been in active existence since the 
muster-out of the regiment. 

To the men of the regiment and probably to some 
of the officers the Colonel was the able, just and con- 
siderate commander, but to those who had the priv- 
ilege of knowing him intimately, he was a most de- 
lightful companion. His clever anecdotes and sto- 
ries were always apropos, his lively raillery was 
never practiced except on his friends, his keen shafts 
of wit were never poisoned. 

And so we like to think of those pleasant hours 
with him, and a smile breaks upon the lips even in 
our sadness. 

54 



OFFICIAL ACTIONS 

TAKEN UPON THE DEATH OF 

COLONEL GAILLARD 



OFFICIAL ACTIONS TAKEN UPON THE 
DEATH OF COLONEL GAILLARD 

RESOLUTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS 

(From the Proceedings of the United States Senate, Con- 
gressional Record, page 422, Dec. 8, 1913.) 

LIEUT.-COL. DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

Mr. 'GORMAN. Mr. President, as chairman of 
the Committee on Interoceanic Canals, which has 
had Colonel Gaillard 's work on the canal under con- 
stant observation, and is therefore entirely familiar 
with the magnitude of the services he rendered the 
Nation, I beg to introduce the following resolution: 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Walsh in the 
chair). The resolution will be read. 

The Secretary read the resolution (S. Res. 233), as 
follows: 

Resolved, That the Senate of the United States 
has heard with profound sorrow of the death of 
Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, to whom the 
American people are under lasting obligations for 
the splendid service he rendered in overcoming some 
of the most perplexing difficulties in connection with 
the construction of the Panama Canal. 

Resolved, That in further testimonial of our es- 
teem the Secretary of the Senate be authorized to 
forward a copy of these resolutions to the family of 
Lieut.-Col. Gaillard. 

Mr. 'GORMAN. I ask unanimous consent for 
the immediate consideration of the resolution. 

57 



The PRESIDING OFFICER. Unanimous consent 
for the immediate consideration of the resolution is 
asked. Is there objection? 

There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to 
consider the resolution. 

Mr. SMITH of South Carolina. Mr. President, I 
should like to state in this connection that Lieutenant- 
Colonel Gaillard was a native of my county and lived 
most of his early life in my county town. I am not 
going to make any remarks upon his character, for 
that is well set forth in an article which appeared 
in one of the newspapers of my State, which I send 
to the desk and ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record. My colleague (Mr. Tillman); 
is unavoidably absent on account of sickness for the 
remainder of the afternoon. He being the senior 
Senator from South Carolina would naturally have 
presented these testimonials. If he were present he 
would be glad to make some remarks upon the char- 
acter and work of this splendid son of South Caro- 
lina. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, 
the matter presented by the Senator from South Car- 
olina will be printed in the Record. The Chair hears 
none. 

The matter referred to is as follows : 

In South Carolina the death of Colonel Gaillard 
brings first of all sorrow, and in the hearts of many 
& sense of personal loss which overshadows the feel- 
ing of regret at the ending of a career which cast so 
bright a reflection on this State, which for the mo- 
ment blunts the realization of the tragedy and pathos 
of this quiet exit from the stage of life before the 

58 



spotlight had been turned full upon his mammoth 
work or the applause of the Nation had reached his 
ears. For Colonel Gaillard was not only admired, 
not only honored in his native State, he was widely 
beloved. Family and friends, of whom he had many, 
particularly in Clarendon and Sumter Counties, here 
in the city of Columbia, and in Fairfield, grieve not 
primarily because the eminent engineer has finished 
his career, not that the "conquerer of Culebra" has 
thus sacrificed himself in successfully circumventing 
nature 's treasonable intent against the canal project, 
but that David Gaillard, the man, is dead. Those 
who knew him best, valued him for the rare charm 
of his personality, for his refreshing fun and wit, for 
a sincerity, a simplicity, a modesty of nature which 
insured him through every success against a change 
in attitude toward people or an altered estimate of 
the real values in life. 

On each leave of absence he came to put himself in 
fresh touch with South Carolina and South Caro- 
linians, and only last June he spent a few days here 
with relatives in Columbia and visited members of 
his family wherever they were scattered throughout 
the State. On that occasion, when a meeting with 
him or the mention of his name brought a realiza- 
tion of his achievement on Panama, he was to his 
friends unchanged, unaffected, cordial, and entirely 
lacking in self-consciousness. And as success and 
fame had seemed unable to work in him their per- 
haps not unexpected change, so time, too, appeared 
to have made unsuccessful onslaughts ; his eye was 
as keen and as kindly as ever, his figure as lithe and 
erect, his movements as quick and energetic, and his 
step as short and nervous as he advanced toward the 

59 



fifty-fourth milestone in his life journey, in appear- 
ance a man of certainly a dozen years younger. It 
was almost immediately upon his return to the Canal 
Zone after that visit that his fatal breakdown oc- 
curred, shocking those who had so recently seen him 
and whose thoughts have since been very constantly 
with him in his losing fight for life. 

Colonel Gaillard 's career since entering the Army 
is well known, there having been occasions from time 
to time to outline his assignments and attainments 
as one of Uncle Sam's most efficient engineers. 
. . . From the time he graduated, in 1884, he 
had an exceedingly varied career, intrusted with an 
unusual number of important Government commis- 
sions of peculiar character and not once having been 
with a regiment or a battalion except during the 
Spanish- American War, when he was Colonel of an 
Engineer regiment. He had been out of West Point 
but a few years, when he was appointed by the Pres- 
ident one of the three commissioners to determine 
the boundary line between Mexico and the United 
States from El Paso, Tex., to the Pacific coast. 

When he completed this work, which brought him 
many interesting and romantic experiences of camp 
life in the desert as well as many stern and stren- 
uous mental and physical tests, he was complimented 
in a state paper by the Secretary of State. Then he 
was ordered on duty in the construction of fortifica- 
tions and a sea wall at Fort Monroe. One of the most 
valuable works on which Colonel Gaillard ever en- 
gaged was the Washington Aqueduct, having been 
put in sole charge of this work when he was only a 
first lieutenant. 

He went from Washington to Alaska upon an 

60 



important secret commission of the Government. 
Nominally, as the order reads, he was sent there 
upon work on the Portland Channel, but his task, it 
was thought, had something to do with international 
complications between this country and England. 
After he had finished this work, for which he was 
highly complimented by the Secretary of War, he 
was put on the staff of Maj.-Gen. James Franklin 
Wade and served at Tampa and Chickamauga. . . . 
Colonel Gaillard, like his engineer comrades of 
the Army, labored at Panama, moved by the spirit of 
obedience to orders and a desire that the work 
should be well done, but also he was quickened to 
most painstaking endeavor by the knowledge that 
the Engineer Corps of the Army was on trial in a 
work upon which civilian engineers had turned their 
backs. He spared himself not at all, and it was only 
after he had solved his great problem and had sight- 
ed the end of his task that his strength failed. 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. The question is on 
agreeing to the resolution. 

The resolution was unanimously agreed to. 

(From Proceedings of the United States House of Repre- 
sentatives, Congressional Record, page 386, Dec. 6, 1913.) 

LIEUT.-COL. DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Speaker 

The SPEAKER. For what purpose does the gen- 
tleman from Tennessee rise? 

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose 
of asking unanimous consent for the consideration 
of a resolution in reference to the death of Lieuten- 
ant Colonel Gaillard, of the Panama Canal. 

61 



The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Tennessee 
asks unanimous consent to consider a resolution of 
regret or condolence on the death of Lieutenant 
Colonel Gaillard, one of the Panama Canal construc- 
tors. Is there objection? 

Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to 
object, let us hear it read. 

The SPEAKER, The Clerk will read the resolu- 
tion. 

The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved, That the House of Representatives has 
heard with profound sorrow of the death of Lieut. 
Col. David DuBose Gaillard, for whose conspicuous 
and valuable services in connection with the con- 
struction of the Panama Canal the Nation is in- 
debted. 

Resolved, That the Clerk of the House transmit a 
copy of these resolutions to the family of the de- 
ceased. 

Mr. MANN. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to 
object, I think ordinarily resolutions of this sort 
ought not to be presented or considered by the 
House, but I think this is a conspicuous instance 
where we ought to vary from the ordinary rule, and 
therefore I do not object. 

The SPEAKER. Is there objection? [After a 
pause.] The Chair hears none. 

The question was taken, and the resolution was 
agreed to. 

The prompt action of the House of Representa- 
tives was commented on in the Baltimore News of 
Dec. 6, 1913, as follows : 

62 



Washington, Dec. 6. — The House took an unusual 
action today when it unanimously adopted a resolu- 
tion of regret over the death of one outside of Con- 
gress, but who had rendered conspicuous service in 
various engineering feats. 

This resolution of regret over the death of Colonel 
Gaillard, who virtually gave his life in the building 
of the Panama canal, was almost unprecedented. 
Speaker Clark recalled that only upon one occasion 
had a somewhat similar resolution been adopted. 



OFFICIAL ORDER IN THE CANAL ZONE 

LIEUT.-COL. DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 
(Gen. Geo. W. Goethals, in Canal Record, Dec. 10, 1913.) 

The cable brings the sad news of the death of 
Lieut. Col. D. D. Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, U. S. 
A., member of the Isthmian Canal Commission, on 
the morning of December 5, 1913, at Baltimore, Md. 

Colonel Gaillard was born in Fulton, Sumter 
County, South Carolina, September 4, 1859. He was 
graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 
1884, and was appointed Second Lieutenant of En- 
gineers on June 15, 1884. After graduation from the 
Engineering School of Application, he served on 
River and Harbor and Fortification work in various 
parts of the United States ; and from February, 1892, 
to December, 1894, was a Commissioner on the Mex- 
ican Boundary Survey. During the war with Spain, 
he was appointed Colonel of the Third United States 
Volunteer Engineers, serving in the United States 
and Cuba in 1898 and 1899, a part of the time as 

63 



Chief Engineer of the District of Santa Clara in 
Cuba. He was Assistant to the Engineer Commis- 
sioner of the District of Columbia following his serv- 
ice in Cuba, until February, 1901. On the organiza- 
tion of the General Staff of the Army, he was se- 
lected as one of its members, and was engaged on 
this duty when appointed a member of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission in 1907. He arrived on the Isth- 
mus in March, 1907, and was appointed subsequently 
head of the Department of Excavation and Dredg- 
ing, retaining that position until a new organization 
was created on July 1, 1908, when he was made Divi- 
sion Engineer of the Central Division, which includ- 
ed the Culebra Cut. He was in charge of the work 
in the Cut until its virtual completion, being com- 
pelled to abandon his duties through illness in July 
last. 

Colonel Gaillard's period of Canal service was co- 
incident with that of the other engineering members 
of the present Commission, and included the years 
of most active construction work. He brought to 
the service trained ability of the first order, untiring- 
zeal and unswerving devotion to duty. His name is 
connected inseparably with the great task which was 
brought to completion under his guidance and will 
be held in lasting honor. His associates mourn him 
as a valiant soldier, true man and beloved compan- 
ion. 

Geo. W. Goethals, 
Chairman and Chief Engineer. 
Culebra, C. Z., December 6, 1913. 



64 



OFFICIAL ORDER, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS 

War Department, Office of Chief of Engineers, 

Washington, Dec. 9, 1913. 
General Orders, No. 31 : 

To the Corps of Engineers is announced the sad 
intelligence of the death of Lieut.-Col. David DuB. 
Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, which occurred at Bal- 
timore, Md., on Dec. 5, 1913. 

(Then follows an account in detail of Colonel Gail- 
lard's military career, the facts of which will be 
found in the sketch of his life, already given, and 
also summarized in the chronology at the end of this 
volume ; and also a copy of the Resolutions adopted 
by the Senate and by the House of Representatives 
of the United States, which are set out in the pre- 
ceding pages 57, 62. The full text of the order is 
given on pages 156-159, post. The order concluded) : 

As a tribute to his memory the Officers of the 
Corps of Engineers will wear the usual badge of 
mourning for 30 days. 

By command of Chief of Engineers, 

Edw. Burr, 
Colonel, Corps of Engineers. 

REPORT OF THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE OF 
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

(Report 122,630 Congress, 2nd Session, by Hon. William C. 
Adamson of Georgia, Chairman.) 

In contrast with the stupendous enterprise on 
which Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard and his associ- 
ates and their illustrious chief, Colonel Goethals, 
have achieved such unexampled success, kindred en- 
terprises in other countries and other ages sink into 

65 



insignificance. Darius, with his conquering army, 
completing the old Suez canal begun and abandoned 
by the old Egyptian king, to be again abandoned and 
relegated to sand dunes and disuse for ages, pre- 
sents but a poor comparison. The ostentatious per- 
formance of Xerxes in constructing the canal across 
the peninsula of Athos, with the money and men of 
all nations, was a mere matter of sport indulged to 
but little purpose or profit beside the stupendous 
achievements at Panama. The canals at Kiel and 
Corinth do not approach our Panama construction 
in magnitude, engineering skill, or universal import- 
ance to mankind. 

The later revival of the Suez Canal was but a 
renewal of the work of monarchs in antiquity, and 
though backed by the power and finances of all Eu- 
rope, presents no analogy or comparison to the work 
accomplished by the mighty Goethals and his never- 
failing lieutenants. 

It was and is the undoubted purpose of Congress 
to render fitting honor to the builders of the canal, 
recognizing each in degree corresponding to his posi- 
tion and rank in the enterprise. The untimely death 
of Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard places him beyond 
the possibility of hearing our plaudits, enjoying the 
incense of our honors to him, profiting by our re- 
wards. 

Any civilized nation would be proud to boast of 
such achievements as will stand to the everlasting 
honor of the builders of the Panama Canal. Those 
surviving will, without question, reap the rewards of 
their toil in the lasting gratitude of a proud people 
and such other rewards as may be adjudged fitting 
to their rank and performance. But as Lieutenant- 

66 



Colonel Gaillard is dead, bis ear deaf to our plaudits, 
his brain no longer conceiving and executing great 
designs, bis heart throbbing no more in unison with 
that once mighty intellect, we can do nothing more 
for him in person, but the life partner, the solace of 
his sorrows and depressions, the inspiration for his 
buoj^ancy, courage, and mighty achievements, his be- 
reaved widow still lives to mourn his loss. We mourn 
with her. We honor her and we honor him in honor- 
ing her. She gave the best years of her life and im- 
paired her health in the tropics co-operating with 
her husband in consecrating his skill and energy to 
consummate an enterprise which has been the dream 
and will be the wonder of the world, and at last saw 
her husband immolated a willing sacrifice to the 
honor and glory of his country. 



67 



TRIBUTES 



TRIBUTES 

HON. LINDLEY M. GARRISON, SECRETARY OP WAR. 
(Baltimore American, Dec. 6, 1913.) 

Upon being advised of the death of Colonel Gail- 
lard, Secretary Garrison sent the following telegram 
to Mrs. Gaillard : ' ' Mrs. Garrison and I tender our 
heartfelt sympathy in this sad hour. It grieves us 
very much to learn of your great loss." 

The Secretary has a keen sense of appreciation of 
the services which Colonel Gaillard rendered the 
Government not only in connection with the excava- 
tion of the Panama Canal, but in important engi- 
neering projects in the United States, including 
fortifications and river and harbor improvements 
and work of great technical value in connection with 
the survey of the Mexican boundary. An order had 
been issued extending an indefinite leave of absence 
to Colonel Gaillard in order to afford him an oppor- 
tunity, by complete rest, to recover from his illness. 

Secretary Garrison wrote personally to the Col- 
onel: "I do not wish you to return to your work 
until you are so completely recovered that there is no 
danger of a recurrence of your existing trouble. I 
cannot let this occasion pass without saying to you 
that there is the fullest appreciation of your most 
valuable services." 

71 



MAJ.-GEN. GEORGE W. GOETHALS 

(Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Dec. 5, 1913.) 

[The official tribute issued by General Goethals and printed 
in the Canal Record of Dec. 10, 1913, is given on pages 63-64.] 

Col. George W. Goethals when informed of the 
death of Colonel Gaillard said : 

I am deeply shocked to hear of the passing of 
Colonel Gaillard. He was a great engineer, an un- 
flinching worker and a true gentleman. While his 
death of course was not unexpected, I feel it is a deep 
personal loss to me. 

FORMER PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

I am very glad that a memorial is being prepared 
for Col. D. I). Gaillard. When I appointed Col- 
onel Gaillard on the Isthmian Commission, it was 
because of the very high reputation he bore. His 
work on the Isthmus admirably sustained this repu- 
tation. He was one of the servants of the United 
States who added to his country's honor, dignity 
and usefulness. (Aug. 16, 1915.) 

FORMER PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. TAFT 

I knew Colonel Gaillard, but not very intimately. 
He was a very competent engineer and a most en- 
thusiastic worker in the cause of the Government. 
I have no doubt that the work which he did in the 
tropics and under the trying conditions that existed 
brought about the illness which led to his death. He 
therefore sacrificed himself in the same way that a 
soldier does in battle. He contributed substantially 
to a great work and Congress recognized his merits. 
I am deeply sorry that he has not been spared for 
many more years of usefulness to his country. 
(June 19, 1915.) 

72 



HON. HENRY L. STIMSON 
Secretary of War, 1911-1913 

Colonel Gaillard's illness and death did not oc- 
cur until after the close of my term of office as Sec- 
retary of War and my only action in reference to 
the matter was a personal letter of condolence to 
Mrs. Gaillard. He was a most efficient, loyal and 
distinguished officer and, as I had an opportunity of 
seeing personally, the great work of the Culebra Cut 
is very largely a record of those qualities of his char- 
acter. He deserves well of his country and I know 
that his host of friends will be very glad that a 
memorial of his life has been undertaken. (Oct. 22, 
1914.) 

HON. JACOB M. DICKINSON 
Secretary of War, 1909-1911 

I esteem it not only a duty to his memory, and 
to the American people whom he served with such 
distinguished ability and fidelity, but a privilege to 
put on record my estimate of the life, character and 
services of the late Col. David DuBose Gaillard. 

As Secretary of War I was for a period of two 
years constantly in touch with his work in making 
the Panama Canal, not only through official corre- 
spondence and reports, but a part of the time 
through personal observation on the ground. I had 
full information in regard to that work, and can 
speak of it and him with confidence. He was pos- 
sessed of and put forth the highest professional skill, 
with a fidelity to duty, and a disregard of care for 
himself that could not be excelled. It is my convic- 
tion that he sacrificed himself for his country as 
truly as if he had died upon the field of battle. The 

73 



record of an officer so brilliant, so accurate, so untir- 
ing, so faithful even unto death, is a proud heritage 
for his family and his countrymen who will keep his 
name in grateful and enduring remembrance. (Sept. 
30, 1914.) 

LIEUT.-GEN. J. C. BATES, U. S. A. (RETIRED) 
Late Chief of Staff 

I first knew Colonel Gaillard when he reported 
to me with his regiment at Macon, Georgia, in the 
fall of 1898. In January, 1899, he again joined me 
at Cienfuegos, Cuba, with part of his regiment, and 
in addition to his regimental duties, he served on my 
staff as Chief Engineer of the Military Department 
of Santa Clara, Cuba, and later he served on my staff 
at St. Louis, Mo., as an officer of the General Staff 
of the Army. 

He has earned so high and world-wide a reputa- 
tion as a constructive engineer that I make no further 
remark on that phase of his life 's work, but speak of 
him as a soldier. I never knew a better volunteer 
regiment than the Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers, 
whose enlisted personnel consisted of men of excel- 
lent intelligence. The officers had to pass a rigid 
examination before being commissioned, and the 
field officers and several of the regimental staff of- 
ficers were trained soldiers, but Colonel Gaillard 
must be given a large share of the credit for the 
high degree of discipline and efficiency attained by 
the regiment. 

As an officer of the General Staff he performed 
highly important duties with marked energy and ef- 
ficiency. Colonel Gaillard was an all round officer 
and in his untimely death our country lost a valuable 

74 



asset, for he was eminently qualified for very high 
command. He was a genial companion, and a lov- 
able and noble man. (Dec. 4, 1914.) 

BRIG.-GEN. JAS. H. WILSON, U. S. A. (RETIRED) 

When I took command of the First Army Corps 
at Lexington, Kentucky, on October 20, 1898, I 
found Col. David DuB. Gaillard, of South Carolina, 
commanding the Third Regiment of United States 
Volunteer Engineers, which had been organized at 
Jefferson Barracks in June of that year. It was 
composed of twelve companies, divided into three 
battalions, each commanded by a graduate of West 
Point. The company officers were generally young- 
Civil Engineers, who had carefully selected the non- 
commissioned officers and enlisted men of the regi- 
ment. 

Although his regiment had been only a few 
months in service, both officers and men had already 
caught the discipline and bearing of well trained 
regulars. 

Upon transfer to Cuba, the three battalions of 
this regiment were immediately utilized in the sur- 
vey of the towns, cities and surrounding country and 
in the systematic study of their conditions, re- 
sources and economic requirements. A spirit of per- 
fect discipline and a high degree of intelligence pre- 
vailed from the first, and the thoroughness with 
which all did their work and made their reports were 
most creditable to both men and officers as well as 
to the country they so admirably represented. 

The experience in command of the Third U. S. 
Volunteer Engineers was but a brief and brilliant 
episode to Gaillard in the career of a scientist and 

75 



a savant. It showed the country just what the highly 
trained West Point soldier could do for it in the ac- 
tual organization and command of troops and left 
Gaillard with increased powers and experience, free 
to return to duty as a Captain of Engineers. 

His work upon "Wave Action" placed him at 
once in the first rank of West Point Hydraulic En- 
gineers and doubtless did its part in securing for 
Colonel Gaillard his detail as a member of the Gen- 
eral Staff corps, Chief of Staff to the Department of 
the Columbia, Assistant Chief of Staff to the North- 
ern Division ; to membership of the Army War Col- 
lege ; of the General Staff corps ; as Assistant Chief 
of Staff in the second occupation of Cuba ; and final- 
ly, on March 22, 1907, as a member of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission. 

As Supervising Engineer in charge of dredging 
the harbors, the body of the canal below the tide 
level, and finally of excavating the Culebra Cut 
through the central ridge of the Isthmus of Panama, 
Colonel Gaillard gained the chief honor of his use- 
ful life. In every phase of his crowning work in 
charge of the Central Division, he Avas left in direct 
control and made many improvements and econ- 
omies in the plant and its management. 

Colonel Gaillard devoted himself so constantly 
and so assiduously to the great work of the canal 
that his health finally became so hopelessly im- 
paired as to cause his death. He would accept no 
relief till it was too late to save his life, and he died 
a martyr to his sense of duty and to the high stand- 
ard of the profession in which he had now become 
distinguished throughout the world. It was well 
known to his companions of the Corps of Engineers, 

76 



that Gaillard was not only an engineer of great 
learning but of unfailing judgment and capacity, and 
it is to be remarked that notwithstanding his schol- 
arship and scientific attainments he was looked upon 
by the Army as an eminently practical, all-around 
man, and by those who served with him, as an ideal 
American soldier. (Dec, 1914.) 

BRIG.-GEN. H. M. CHITTENDEN, U. S. A. (RETIRED) 
A Member of Colonel Gaillard's Class at West Point 

(In January, 1914, Bulletin of the Class of 1884, U. S. Mili- 
tary Academy.) 

To lay down one's life upon the field of battle in 
voluntary service of fatherland has been considered 
in all ages the loftiest expression of patriotism, if 
not of heroism itself. To fall as Gaillard has fallen 
— is it any less true heroism ? Any less self-sacrifice 
upon the altar of country? Not amid the din of 
armed conflict, nerved by the frenzy of an hour or 
a day, but at the end of long years of patient, ex- 
acting work, of terrific responsibility, the tragic end 
has come. But it is just as much a direct result of 
the struggle itself as if it were the work of a hostile 
bullet, and the exalted standard of duty which his 
career exemplified will command the increasing ad- 
miration of men as long as his work in the Isthmian 
hills endures. 

We grieve that he could not have remained to 
enjoy the fruits of his well-earned fame. But there 
is compensation in the thought that to him was re- 
served the higher privilege of laying down his life 
work just as it was crowned with success. Like 
Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, he has been called 
with the plaudits of victory ringing in his ears. 
Whatever may come to others, his record is secure. 

77 



MAJ.-GEN. W. W. WOTHERSPOON, U. S. A. (RETIRED) 

Colonel G-aillard served as one of my assistants 
for a long period in the War College branch of the 
General Staff of the Army, and whilst so serving 
gave evidence of that marked ability which has 
characterized his entire service in the Army. I, 
like everyone else who ever served with Colonel 
Gaillard, had a deep admiration and respect for 
him. (Sept. 25, 1914.) 



BRIG.-GEN. JOHN M. WILSON, U. S. A. (RETIRED) 
(Late Chief of Engineers) 

It was my good fortune to have been honored 
with the acquaintance of the late Col. David DuB. 
Gaillard for a number of years. 

I regarded him as one of the ablest, bravest, 
most accomplished officers of Corps of Engineers of 
the United States Army, and as a cultivated gentle- 
man of the highest type of character; honorable in 
every sense, firm and true in peace and war. Gen- 
erations shall come and pass away ere the beloved 
name of this hero will be forgotten by the Nation. 
He gave up his life in the interest of the great work 
in which he was engaged on the Panama Canal, re- 
maining on duty till his physical strength was ex- 
hausted. 

His name should be carved high upon the tablet 
of fame of the heroes who have given up their lives 
in the interest, welfare and prosperity of our great 
Nation. (Sept. 25, 1914.) 



78 



GEN. W. M. BLACK, CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, U. S. A. 
A TRIBUTE 

How is it possible to put into words any adequate 
tribute to the memory of a friend of many years? 
How much more difficult is this when in addition to 
worth as a man and a friend, eminence as an en- 
gineer who has advanced his profession along wide- 
ly different lines, is to be portrayed? 

My acquaintance with Colonel Gaillard goes 
back to his cadet days, when some of his work at the 
drills in practical military engineering first brought 
him to my attention as his instructor. Later, after 
graduation, his first practical work was as my as- 
sistant in the Florida District of river and harbor 
improvements, where, for four years, we were 
closely associated. From 1887 until the end of his 
life, in the varied stations and duties of our corps, 
we were thrown together from time to time. Always 
it was a pleasure to meet him; always a profit to 
learn of his work. 

Very early in his career he manifested the 
qualities which were sure to lead to eminence in his 
profession — an intense devotion to duty — strong 
common sense — an unusual power of observation 
and analysis by which he saw not only what was 
being done and how it was being done, but also how 
methods could be bettered and greater results ob- 
tained. It surely was no small thing for a young 
engineer, with practically no funds for experiment, 
to undertake the analysis of wave action, to devise 
a simple and practical instrument for recording 
wave pressures, and to measure the force of the 
breakers which he was combating in his work on the 
sandy coast of Florida. Yet the first work on this 

79 



line of study was done in Florida in 1888, work 
which later resulted in his book on ''Wave Action 
in Relation to Engineering Structures," which has 
become a standard book of reference on this difficult 
subject among the engineers of the world. 

From 1891 to 1896 he was a member of the 
Mexican Boundary Commission, and had duties of 
great responsibility. For a large part of this time 
he was in the field and traversed the entire bound- 
ary line from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean. 
Of hardships there were many, but his friends later 
heard from him only the many humorous incidents 
which a man with his sense of fun was sure to find 
on such a journey, through the deserts, with a party 
originally composed mainly of scientific tenderfeet. 

After this duty he was for a time on fortifica- 
tion duty at Fort Monroe, and later in Washington, 
in local charge of the Washington Aqueduct and 
water supply. It was while there that his superiors 
showed their confidence in him by selecting him for 
a peculiarly delicate piece of work in Alaska. 

At the outbreak of the Spanish War he was 
promptly assigned to military duty as Engineer 
Officer on the Staff of General Wade. A little later 
he Avas appointed Colonel of the Third Regiment 
of Volunteer Engineers, recruited from the South. 
This regiment was organized too late to participate 
in the actual fighting, but in December, 1898, and in 
January and February of 1899 it was sent to Cuba 
by battalions and stationed at Matanzas, Cienfuegos 
and Pinar del Rio. There a fruitful field for activity 
was found in the sanitation and engineering prob- 
lems of those portions of the Island, until May, 
1899, when the Regiment was returned to the United 

80 



States and mustered out. It is said that the Com- 
manding General of the Province of Santa Clara, 
himself a veteran of the Civil War and a distin- 
guished soldier, stated that in all his experience he 
had never seen a better volunteer regiment than was 
the Third Regiment of Volunteer Engineers — a 
tribute indeed to its Colonel. 

After the war came various duties, carried out 
with characteristic fidelity, energy and ability. 
Colonel Gaillard never was satisfied with good 
enough. Each class of duty was marked by some 
achievement in the betterment of methods. 

So it was but natural that, when in 1906 Presi- 
dent Roosevelt was engaged in organizing the staff 
of engineers for the great work at Panama, he se- 
lected Colonel Gaillard as one. To him fell the task 
for which it was supposed that officers of the Corps 
of Engineers from their training and experience 
were least fitted — the completion of the Culebra Cut 
— supposedly primarily a job of railroad engineer- 
ing and management. How well he did this work, 
how the useful output of each machine, engine and 
car was practically doubled under Colonel Gail- 
lard's unceasing care is a matter of history. To us 
who knew the man, the results were not surprising 
— simply expected. It was a wonderful experience 
to walk through the cut with Colonel Gaillard on 
one of his tours of inspection. Not a step was with- 
out an instructive reminiscence, and not a recital 
without that humorous accompaniment which was 
so enjoyable. The torrid heat and the rough going 
were forgotten and the six-mile tramp seemed but a 
short stroll. 

Without doubt it was his hard work and anxiety 

81 



on the Isthmus which shortened his life, but 
equally without doubt, had this result been foreseen, 
the work would have been done with the same dis- 
regard of self. 

Any memory of Colonel Gaillard would be in- 
complete without some allusion to his home life. 
From the day when she came to Florida as a bride, 
to the end, Mrs. Gaillard was always the devoted 
companion, friend and helper. With their son, she 
shared his lot always, in city or desert, at home, in 
Cuba, in Panama. No one who visited their home 
at Culebra can ever forget the wonderful scene of 
beauty created there out of what had been a jungle. 

It was fitting that both houses of our Congress 
should have taken official notice of the death of 
Colonel Gaillard, for in his death the country lost 
one of her most useful citizens, dead in line of duty. 
But what can the rest of us do? How can we ex- 
press our sense of personal loss of a man admired 
and respected as an officer and an engineer and be- 
loved as a friend? (Feb. 10, 1915.) 

MAJ.-GEN. W. C. GORGAS, SURGEON GENERAL, U. S. A. 
(Late Member Isthmian Canal Commission) 

GAILLARD AS A FRIEND 

I first met Colonel Gaillard when he came to 
Panama in 1907, and was thrown with him very in- 
timately for the next six years. As I look back 
through my life's companionships I can recollect 
few men for whom I formed as great a personal at- 
tachment as I did for Colonel Gaillard. Colonel 
Gaillard 's work was located for about nine miles 
along the Culebra Cut. My sanitary inspections 
nearly every week took me to some part of his work. 

82 



I would usually telephone him the clay before, let- 
ting him know where my sanitary inspections would 
carry me, and ask him to appoint a place and hour 
where and when we should meet. In this way we gen- 
erally spent half a day together nearly every week. 
These expeditions are among the most agreeable 
recollections which I retain of the Isthmus. He was 
always bright, cheerful, witty and entertaining. 

I was naturally interested in the great engineer- 
ing problems which he had in hand, and these he 
had the faculty of making most clear and interest- 
ing to my non-engineering mind. 

It was most surprising to me to see, from week to 
week, as I went on the work, how he had overcome 
the difficulties which had seemed to me a short time 
before insurmountable. I remember, in particular, 
my surprise at the astounding way in which he 
steadily reduced unit cost in this part of the work 
during the years of his administration. 

No history of this work would ever be able to 
make plain the handicaps under which he labored, 
and the administrative difficulties against which 
he had to contend. It was a source of great satis- 
faction to me to believe that my liking and friend- 
ship were returned by him. We were together the 
last day he spent on the Isthmus and lunched to- 
gether just before he sailed. We all then knew that 
he was a very sick man. He took this occasion to 
express to me his warm friendship, and it is a great 
source of consolation to me to know that at this, 
our last meeting, I was enabled to make him under- 
stand how near and how valuable a, friend he was 
tome. (Oct. 9, 1915.) 



83 



BRIG.-GEN. W. L. SIBERT, U. S. A. 
(Late Member Isthmian Canal Commission) 

(In report of the Forty-fifth Annual Reunion, June, 1914, of 
the Association of the Graduates of the United States Military 
Academy.) 

Although stricken in middle age, David DuBose 
Gaillard served his country more effectively than 
most men are able to do in the ordinarily allotted 
number of years. His most striking characteristic 
was a marked alertness of both mind and body, 
coupled with a determination to know every detail 
of the work on which he was engaged, and to see 
that every step taken was founded on correct prin- 
ciples, be that step physical or moral. This with a 
genius for administration and organization coupled 
with indefatigable energy, constitute a combination 
from which great results should follow. We conse- 
quently find Gaillard at the age of 32 a member 
of the International Boundary Commission between 
the United States and Mexico. Upon first call to 
arms in the Spanish-American War, we find him 
requisitioned by Major-General Wade for duty as 
Engineer Officer on his staff. Then we find him, 
although only a captain in the regular establish- 
ment, appointed Colonel Third Regiment, United 
States Volunteer Engineers, and serving in Cuba. 
After the war with Spain we find him a member of 
the General Staff Corps, and again in Cuba during 
the second occupation of that island as assistant 
to the chief of staff of the forces there. Finally we 
find him appointed a member of the Isthmian Canal 
Commission and assigned to a duty that involved, 
among other things, digging the great cut through 
the Continental Divide at Culebra, the most trying, 

84 



discouraging and difficult feature connected with 
the building of the Panama Canal. 

The surest proof of duty well done is the con- 
tinual selection for duties more and more important. 

In the performance of all the above work, the 
records show that the same determination to forget 
self and to fully master the duty at hand, whether 
that duty be the astronomical observations neces- 
sary in establishing an international boundary line, 
the preparation of a volunteer regiment for service 
in the field, or in keeping the tracks intact and the 
trains and shovels going in spite of the sliding 
mountain sides at Culebra. 

When Gaillard was selected in 1907 as a member 
of the Isthmian Canal Commission and assigned to 
a duty that involved cleaving a passage way for 
ships through the Continental Divide at Panama, 
every one recognized the stupendousness of the task, 
and furthermore that success at a reasonable cost 
involved the best solution of an intricate problem 
in railroad transportation, a field practically new 
to Gaillard. The work was under way, with com- 
petent subordinates, and Gaillard first undertook a 
complete study of the bigger elements of the prob- 
lem. 

He noted that the loaded cars were taken from 
the shovels to extensive yards and there made up 
into trains and sent to the dumps. His studies 
indicated that if trains of suitable size could be par- 
tially loaded at one shovel, passed on to others, and 
finally when completely loaded go to the dumps, 
that the output of the steam shovels would be in- 
creased and that the same railroad transportation 
equipment would carry this increased output to the 

85- 



dumps and thus bring about a material decrease in 
cost. The results proved the correctness of his de- 
ductions, and the resulting system of train move- 
ment in the Culebra Cut was highly praised by 
many visiting railroad transportation men. 

After studying and unifying the general fea- 
tures of the work, Gaillard commenced a similar 
study of the smaller elements with a view of further 
increasing output and diminishing cost. This in- 
volved an immense amount of work, such as the 
selection of the explosive best suited to the various 
classes of rock, the best depth to drill holes and 
how best to space them; keeping records of per- 
formance and costs of repair of each unit of the 
varied and extensive plant; the relative cost of sim- 
ilar operations in the several subdivisions of the 
work, etc., etc. 

As the work proceeded, the slides and other dif- 
ficulties increased, and the burden became more 
severe; and just as victory was in sight he broke 
under the strain and was unconscious when the last 
barrier was destroyed that held back the waters of 
Gatun Lake from his essentially completed work. 

The duty done and the results accomplished by 
Gaillard for his country are of permanent record 
and will be an inspiration for many young gradu- 
ates of our Alma Mater, but the personal side of 
his character, his unselfishness, his unfailing cour- 
tesy, his genial manner, his quick, brilliant wit can 
only be of adequate record in the memory of those 
who knew him through sunshine and through rain. 



86 



LIEUT.-COL. CHESTER HARDING 
Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. 

(Extract from a lecture on "Personal Recollections of the 
Work on the Panama Canal," delivered before the Washington 
Society of Engineers on Jan. 6, 1914.) 

How pathetic it is, what a tragedy it is, that on 
the day that the waters of the lake first flowed into 
the Culebra Cut, the man under whose brilliant lead- 
ership the victory was won, was lying in mortal 
illness far from the scene, unconscious of his tri- 
umph. His fame is secure. His name will be hon- 
ored as one who sacrificed his life in the perform- 
ance of his duty, in the same way that we honor, 
and teach the young to honor, a general who is killed 
on the field of battle while leading his forces to 
victory. How eminently fitting it would be for the 
Government to erect a monument to Gaillard 's mem- 
ory on the banks of the Culebra Cut. 



COL. WILLOUGHBY WALKE 

Coast Artillery Corps, U. S. A. 

(Late Major Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers) 

AT WEST POINT 

Colonel Gaillard possessed the same lovable 
traits of character that endeared him to every one 
who knew . him, while his standing in his class 
clearly indicated the high mental qualifications 
which subsequently won for him the high esteem 
in which he was held, not only by members of his 
own corps, but by everyone with whom he came 
in contact. 

Of his service as Colonel of the Third United 
States Volunteer Engineers, it is unnecessary for me 
to speak. The high efficiency and excellent disci- 

87 



pline of the regiment were only a reflection of his 
personal character. 

Although firm in the enforcement of discipline 
and in his demand that every man perform his full 
duty, it was nevertheless a great pleasure to serve 
under him, and I shall always recall my service in 
the Third Engineers as one of the happiest, as well 
as one of the most instructive, periods of my entire 
service in the Army. 

In recognition of his crowning success in over- 
coming the almost insuperable difficulties of Culebra 
Cut, which made the Panama Canal a possibility, 
his name will surely be placed among those of the 
world's greatest engineers. (Sept. 29, 1914.) 

PROP. J. L. VAN ORNUM 

Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, Washington Uni- 
versity; Associate of Colonel Gaillard Throughout 
Mexican Boundary Survey 
(Late Major Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers.) 

Colonel Gaillard was a distinguished officer of 
that corps of our military establishment celebrated 
for illustrious service. His exceptional qualification 
for duties of especial importance is attested by the 
repeated selection of him for positions of note- 
worthy trust, such as those of Commissioner of the 
Mexican Boundary Survey, Colonel of the Third 
U. S. Volunteer Engineers, and Isthmian Canal 
Commissioner; and the significance of his achieve- 
ment in the removal of that stupendous barrier at 
Panama is justly recognized in the name "Gaillard 
Cut," which will ever remain a deserved tribute to 
him who gave his life to the accomplishment of this 
unparalleled undertaking. He was held in highest 
respect for his steadfast integrity and his intense 



devotion to duty; he was admired for his discrim- 
inating judgment and his productive talent; he was 
honored for his supreme fidelity to his country's in- 
terests that were entrusted to his care; he was sin- 
cerely esteemed for that unassuming sincerity which 
is characteristic of the truly great, and he was loved 
for his loyalty to his friendships, his responsibilities 
and his ideals. (May 1, 1914.) 

LIEUT. JOHN W. BLACK 

(Late First Lieutenant and Battalion Adjutant Third U. S. 
Volunteer Engineers) 

[Address at banquet of Officers of Third U. S. Volunteer 
Engineers at Aragon Hotel, Atlanta, May 17, 1899. The Regi- 
ment was mustered out of the Volunteer Army of the Spanish 
War upon the morning of that day.] 

Mr. Toastmaster and Fellow Officers : It is some- 
what of a surprise to me to have been called upon 
to supplement the remarks which have just been 
made, inasmuch as I have been with you so short a 
time* that I cannot be expected to say that which 
might best express your sentiments. However, it 
has required but a short association with you to dis- 
cover many of the good qualities of our command- 
ing officer, whose efforts seem to have been untiring 
for the good of the regiment, as shown by the high 
state of efficiency to which it has attained, which has 
been acknowledged by all those most competent to 
judge. It is indeed a privilege and an honor to 
have served under so worthy an officer, and I for my 
part shall never regret having joined you for mus- 
ter out. Although we all may not have gained all 
we anticipated at the beginning of the war, yet we 
cannot but feel assured that had the opportunity 

*Lieut. Black had been absent on detached service upon the 
staff of General James H. Wilson until a short time before the 
regiment returned from Cuba. 

89 



offered, we could not have failed to gain some per- 
sonal glory, as a reflection of his worthy leadership. 
But after all it is not the strife of battle alone which 
develops bravery, nor the clash of arms which 
makes the hero, as often the bivouac and the camp 
bring out the instincts of the true man and the ideal 
soldier. In contemplating the short time we would 
be together before our paths in life would again 
separate, the idea impressed me that it would be 
highly fitting for us to present our worthy colonel 
with some token of our esteem, and appreciation of 
his efforts in our behalf; and the hearty response 
which met my suggestion is in itself enough to attest 
the high regard in which he is held, both as a man 
and a soldier. 

Colonel Gaillard, I have the pleasure and honor 
of presenting to you this evening, as a token of our 
esteem and good will, and best wishes for the fu- 
ture, this loving cup. May it, while recalling to you 
the scenes of the campaign, also recall the personnel 
of the regiment, and the good fellowship which has 
always existed among us. We have tried to select 
something which would be acceptable, and which 
could be used not only in the field, but in your own 
home, where it can be enjoyed by your estimable 
wife, whose presence among us has on more than 
one occasion helped to cheer our soldier life, and 
who we regret could not have been with us at mus- 
ter out. It is our earnest wish that you may be 
spared to your country and your family for many 
years, and that your cup of happiness may be filled 
to the brim. May you in the years to come, always 
find some of us to drink with you the toast, "The 
Third United States Volunteer Engineers. ' ' 

90 



EDITORIAL APPRECIATION 



EDITORIAL APPRECIATION 

Colonel Gaillard's death called forth from the en- 
tire press of the country most appreciative editorial 
comments upon his life and services and his un- 
timely death. It is difficult to recall an instance 
when one who had been so little in the public eye, 
and whose name was comparatively little known to 
the people at large, has received tributes of appre- 
ciation from so great a variety of sources. The edi- 
torial comments from periodicals and newspapers 
would of themselves make a large volume. It is 
deeply regretted that the limitations of this me- 
morial do not permit the inclusion of all of the many 
editorial tributes which a generous press paid to 
Colonel Gaillard at the time of his death. A few of 
these comments that appeared in the technical and 
weekly press and in the daily press, have been se- 
lected as representing the warm response from the 
whole country. 

TECHNICAL AND WEEKLY PRESS 
(Army and Navy Journal Dec. 13, 1913.) 

Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, Corps of En- 
gineers, U. S. A., whose death in Baltimore, Md., 
December 5, 1913, we briefly noted in our last issue, 
was an officer who stood exceedingly high in his pro- 
fession. He is the first of the army engineers em- 
ployed in the construction of the Panama Canal to 
die as a result of his work, which is considered as 
undoubtedly a contributory cause of his illness, al- 
though the results of the official autopsy made pub- 

93 



lie on December 8th indicate that the immediate 
cause of death was an infiltrating tnmor in the 
brain. . . . 

Colonel Gaillard had the digging of Culebra Cut, 
without doubt the greatest and most difficult work 
connected with the construction of the canal. 
Colonel Gaillard 's work at Culebra, it is estimated, 
saved the Government $17,000,000. 

Colonel Gaillard was in New York last spring on a 
leave in the hope that the rest would benefit his 
health to the extent that he would be able to re- 
main in the Canal Zone to see his part of the work 
completed. He sailed from New York on June 26 
last, again to take charge of the work in the Cen- 
tral Division. He had to return North, however, a 
couple of months later, and entered the Johns Hop- 
kins Hospital at Baltimore, where he had been a 
patient since August 17. The weight of responsi- 
bility, coupled with the climatic conditions and the 
long hours of physical work had undermined his 
health. 

Last month a bill was introduced in Congress to 
promote Colonel Gaillard to the rank of colonel for 
his distinguished service. He lay unconscious at the 
hospital at the time and knew nothing of the wed- 
ding of the Atlantic and Pacific, with the blasting 
of the Gamboa Dike on October 10. 

At the Panama Canal 20,000 workers on the 
Culebra section were to interrupt their work and 
stand at attention for five minutes on December 8, 
at the time of the funeral of Colonel Gaillard, who 
was chief engineer of this section of the canal. The 
Senate passed a resolution expressing sympathy, 
and Secretary of War Garrison sent a telegram of 

94 



condolence to Mrs. Gaillard as soon as he learned 
of her husband's death. 

[Professional Memoirs, Corps of Engineers, United States 
Army and Engineer Department at Large, January-February, 
1914, pp. 133-4.] 

LIEUT.-COL. DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

(The article, after giving an interesting account 
of Colonel Gaillard 's life, with detailed references 
to his engineering and military service, con- 
cludes) : 

The foregoing brief record of Colonel Gaillard 's 
professional services speaks eloquently for his talents 
and ability. In his more than twenty-nine years of 
continuous active service, he has filled positions of 
great responsibility and trust, covering a wide and 
varied field of duty, both as a military and as a 
civil engineer. His successful prosecution of the 
monumental work on the Culebra Cut of the Panama 
Canal, one of the greatest and most trying of en- 
gineering problems, constitutes a crowning achieve- 
ment in a life characterized by conscientiousness, 
loyalty and modesty. 

His friends and intimates will remember Colonel 
Gaillard, not only for professional attainments of 
the highest order, but also for his character as a 
man, husband and father. Possessed of a cheerful 
temperament and of a never-failing good humor, he 
was always a welcome addition to any gathering. A 
life so well spent must indeed serve as an inspira- 
tion to coming generations. 



95 



HALBERT P. GILLETT 
Editor-in-Chief of Engineering and Contracting 
(In an Editorial, Dec. 10, 1913) 

DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD, AUTHOR 

The death of David DuBose Gaillard will cause 
much to be said about his construction work as an 
engineer. His fidelity to the task of directing the 
largest single excavation that man has yet carved 
through a mountain — the Culebra Cut — has cost him 
his life. This tragic end will merit all the public 
notice that it will receive. 

Before Gaillard went to Panama he performed a 
great work which is unknown to the general public, 
and of which few engineers have knowledge. He had 
made a most painstaking series of tests and had 
written an exhaustive treatise that was published 
nine years ago as Professional Paper No. 31 of the 
Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., entitled ' ' Wave Action 
in Relation to Engineering Structures." At the 
time of its publication the writer was one of the 
editors of Engineering Neivs, and it fell to his lot 
to condense " Paper No. 31" into an article. But to 
abstract such a paper was not the task of a few 
hours, nor even of a few days. The paper was of 
absorbing interest to the writer, not because this 
was on a subject of which he knew much, but be- 
cause of its authorship. Here was an author who 
has undertaken to present to the engineering world 
not merely a mass of data — although that alone 
would have merited its reward — but who had under- 
taken to analyze the data and derive useful gen- 
eralization therefrom. This was noteworthy author- 
ship, and the deeper the writer studied the paper 
the more its merit impressed him. Three solid 

96 



weeks were spent in the study of Gaillard 's treatise, 
and in condensing it into an article, which was then 
submitted to the author for review. His letter of 
reply was full compensation for all the work that 
the article represented. 

Any careful student of Professional Paper No. 31 
could scarcely fail to see therein a picture of the 
man who wrote it. The picture is one of a highly 
trained, analytical man of science, gifted with a 
great thoroughness of application to the problem 
in hand. 

The picture is not that of a man of "pure 
science," either, of one who delves for facts merely 
for the pleasure of finding what is new. The picture 
is of the scientific man who seeks facts with the 
object of their immediate, useful application. It is 
the picture of an engineer. That it is the picture of 
a great engineer there was no doubt in the writer's 
mind nine years ago, and time has merely served to 
bring into more pronounced relief the greatness of 
the man. 

CHARLES WHITING BAKER 

Editor-in-Chief of Engineering News 

(In a letter to the Neiv York Times, Dec. 22, 1913) 

To the Editor of The New York Times: 

Your editorial article, commenting on the achieve- 
ments of the late Col. D. DuB. Gaillard in the Panama 
Canal work and urging suitable recognition by Con- 
gress, deserves commendation. It is probably little 
realized by the general public how many millions of 
dollars have been saved to the United States by the 
quality of the service that has been rendered by our 
engineers who have conducted the work at Panama. 
Colonel Gaillard was distinguished among his as- 

97 



sociates by the enthusiasm with which he worked. 
No college football captain trains his team with a 
more eager zest than Colonel Gaillard displayed in 
the conduct of his huge task — the largest job of ex- 
cavation by far that the world has ever seen. And 
let me summarize in a word the results : The rock 
of the Culebra Cut has been blasted, excavated, load- 
ed on cars, hauled some fourteen miles and spread 
on the dump. The work has been carried on 2,000 
miles from the base of supplies, with a plant bought 
at the boom prices of 1907, with skilled labor receiv- 
ing the highest wages ever known, with inefficient 
colored labor of the tropics to perform the ordinary 
tasks, with the heat and rains of a tropical climate, 
to say nothing of constantly recurring slides and 
floods. Under all those conditions, the cost per cubic 
yard of the Culebra Cut excavation has been only 
some two-thirds the cost of the rock excavation on 
the Chicago Drainage Canal, built in the '90 's, where 
the rock was merely dumped in a pile on the bank 
beside the canal. 

I sincerely trust that Congress will suitably recog- 
nize Colonel Gaillard 's service, not alone because 
such recognition is peculiarly deserved where a man 
yields up his life in his country's service, but be- 
cause such recognition is necessary to counteract 
the oft-repeated charge that republics are ungrate- 
ful. Such devoted public service as Colonel Gaillard 
gave is needed everywhere ; and the country can well 
afford to deal generously with those who give their 
lives in such service. 



98 



(Engineering Record, New York, Dec. 13, 1913) 
DEATH OF COLONEL GAILLARD 

The death of Lieut.-Col. David DuB. Gaillard in 
Baltimore last week marks the first break in the 
ranks of those great engineers to whom the Panama 
achievement is to be credited. Not less bravely than 
the soldier whose career ends on the battlefield did 
he give up his life in the service of his country. 
With the other men still fighting the engineering 
battles on the Isthmus, his name will go down in 
history, for the Panama Canal will assume impor- 
tant rank in American annals. 

(Engineering News, New York, Dec. 11, 1913) 

It is greatly to be regretted that a man who co" - 
tributed so much to the success of this great enter- 
prise, for which he truly gave his life, should not 
have lived to witness its completion, or at least to 
have died with the knowledge that every detail gave 
proof of ultimate success. 

This is particularly the case because of all those 
occupying positions of high responsibility in con- 
nection with the great work at Panama, Gaillard 
will by common consent be awarded chief place for 
enthusiastic interest in the work. Many, if not most 
engineers, as they advance in years, become so ac- 
customed to the routine of professional work that 
they follow it from force of habit and lose the inter- 
est in it that animated them in the years when life 
was new. But Colonel Gaillard was a man who pos- 
sessed in rare degree the quality of youthful enthu- 
siasm, a quality that made him most attractive as a 
friend and as a co-worker. 

99 



From one point of view, his task was one of the 
least spectacular on the Isthmus, even though in 
point of dollars spent and material moved it was the 
hugest of all. The great feat that he accomplished 
in this task was not the battling with slides or the 
design of the plant and equipment. It is expressed 
in the statement that this huge piece of excavation, 
the largest ever undertaken in the world, beset by- 
many great difficulties, all tending to make the work 
unduly expensive, has been carried out at a cost per 
cubic yard removed which has seldom been even 
approached in work carried on anywhere in the 
world under the most favorable conditions. 

(Railway and Engineering Review, Chicago, 111., Dec. 13, 1913) 
DEATH OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL GAILLARD 

Lieut. -Col. David DuBose Gaillard, United States 
Army, who directed the engineering work in the 
Culebra Cut, a division of the Panama Canal, died 
at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Wednes- 
day, December 5. . . . His ability as a supervising- 
officer and as an engineer has been commended in 
the highest terms, and much regret is expressed at 
the occurrence of his death just at the time of 
the completion of his monumental task. 

{Steam Shovel and Dredge, New York, Dec, 1913) 

The death of the distinguished engineer will cause 
a pang of sorrow in the hearts of the hundreds of 
men who worked under him on the Panama Canal, 
for he was greatly respected and admired by all 
who came in contact with him. . . . 

No soldier ever won fame in a more deserving 
way than did Colonel Gaillard. His deeds were not 

100 



of the heroic kind on the field of battle, but they 
were none the less valuable to the world, and his 
place is secure in the history of the country. . . . 
As a man, Colonel Gaillard was kind-hearted and 
always took a keen interest in the welfare of the 
common laborers. To him the common laborer was 
just as important as the highly skilled mechanic, 
for he was interested in seeing that justice was done 
to all. That is why his death will be mourned in the 
canal zone. 

VAUGHAN CORNISH 

(In Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, 

London, Feb., 1914) 

In 1908, on my second visit to the Panama Canal 
works, I found Colonel Gaillard installed as en- 
gineer in charge of the Culebra Cut. Thanks to his 
organization, everything worked smoothly and rap- 
idly, and the neatly terraced sides of the cut stood 
firmly. But when I next visited the canal in 1910, 
the bottom of the cut was already upheaving. Con- 
sequently, during the last four years of his life he 
thought and labored unceasingly upon an excava- 
tion of which the sides would not stand up, and a 
construction of which the foundation sank. He was 
an active, alert and vigorous man, in the prime of 
life. His intelligence was above the common and 
his mind worked quickly. His great personal charm 
gave him many friends, and he had that wide range 
of intellectual interest which is so useful to a man 
burdened by an arduous task. But at last the strain 
broke him. Such a work as the dividing of a con- 
tinent requires the sacrifice of men as well as money 
and Gaillard spent himself willingly in the execution 

of his task. 

101 



(Collier's Weekly, Jan. 3, 1914) 

David DuBose Gaillard, hero of the great Culebra 
Cut, was buried the other day in Arlington, dead at 
fifty-four. In energy and efficiency, in loyalty and 
honor, he was a true son of that new South which 
has risen from the ashes of our Civil War. In con- 
structive genius he was a peer of De Lesseps and 
the other great engineers of the French stock. Our 
statesmen and millionaires shrink and fade most 
pitifully when we set their performances against 
the modest devotion to duty which was this man's 
life. 

(The Outlook, Dec. 20, 1913) 
GAILLARD: SOLDIER OF PEACE 

Something like twenty-five years ago a young 
journalist by the name of Rudyard Kipling made a 
prophecy. "Some day," he said (we quote from 
memory), "the American Army will make the finest 
engineering corps in the world." The American 
Army is today a great deal more than a fine en- 
engineering corps, but no one will deny that this 
prophecy of Mr. Kipling has been justified by the 
facts. Engineers of the American Army owe the 
high position which they hold today not chiefly to 
their skill in planning means of scientific destruc- 
tion, but to their constructive achievements in the 
realm of peace. Not the least among these leaders 
of the new army was Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard, 
now dead on the field of battle. The war in which he 
was engaged was not with man, but for man, and 
with forces of Nature. Since 1907 he had been in 
charge of the central division of the Panama Canal, 

102 



concerned with the stupendous operations at the 
Culebra Cut, that nine-mile artificial valley which 
we have made through the backbone of the Isthmus. 

(Nation, New York, Dec. 11, 1913) 

The death of Colonel Gaillard, the conquerer of 
Culebra Cut, comes pathetically close upon the com- 
pletion of the historic task. In a very real sense he 
gave his life to his work. Unremitting toil broke 
his health, and one likes to imagine that it was only 
a brave spirit which held him on the Isthmus till the 
work in hand was done. That task was carried on 
in the manner of the true workman, outside of the 
glare of publicity and with thought only for the 
matter in hand. Had Colonel Gaillard lived a few 
months, the Nation would have undoubtedly ex- 
pressed its recognition of his services. 

(The Human Factor, New York, March, 1914) 

The engineers of the American Army owe the 
high position which they hold today not so much 
to their skill in planning means of destroying life as 
to their constructive achievements in the realm of 
peace. 

Among the most successful of these was the late 
Lieut.-Col. D. D. Gaillard — one of the heroic figures 
in the great historic achievement of severing the 
continents at Panama. . . . 

He served his country and humanity with heroic 
fidelity, and gave up his life on the altar of patriot- 
ism, fighting not with man, but for man in conquer- 
ing the forces of nature. 



103 



DAILY PRESS 
(Atlanta, Ga., Constitution, Dec. 10, 1913) 

The change in world trade and the vast era of de- 
velopment that will follow the opening of the canal 
will be attributable as much to the energy and the 
sacrifice of such men as Gaillard as to the enterprise 
and wealth of the American people. When it is said 
that this labor was the most gigantic of those labors 
of Hercules which have characterized the construc- 
tion of the waterway, the achievement of Colonel 
Gaillard is seen in its proper proportion. 

(Baltimore American, Dec. 6, 1913) 

Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, the man whose 
practical genius contributed so much toward build- 
ing the canal, an engineer of the highest type, be- 
sides being a man of the worthiest ideals and noblest 
aspirations, has left behind him a name whose luster 
will be none the less because he died upon the brink 
of the full achievement of the task to which he de- 
voted his life. The man who breathed his last in 
Baltimore, the city destined to have a new era as a 
result of his enterprise, will be remembered forever 
by his fellow countrymen and his name will stand 
for the best traditions of army service and of patri- 
otic carrying on of a herculean undertaking. So that 
despite the pathetic incidents of his closed career, it 
is one that will be a heritage to his family and to the 
nation. 

(Baltimore Neivs, Dec. 31, 1913) 
A MONUMENT TO GAILLARD 

James Bryce says that in the construction of the 
Panama Canal man has taken more liberties with Na- 

104 



ture than in any other instance in history. The Cu- 
lebra Cut in particular has appealed powerfully to 
the popular imagination. In a recent article by the 
editor of Engineering News the statement is made 
that this work is the "largest job of excavation by 
far that the world has ever seen. ' ' 

It appears, also, that not only is it the most colos- 
sal undertaking of its kind but it has been carried 
out with remarkable economy and efficiency. It had 
to be clone "2000 miles from the base of supplies, 
with a plant bought at the boom prices that, pre- 
vailed in 1907, with skilled labor receiving the high- 
est wages ever known, with the heat and rains of a 
tropical climate, to say nothing of constantly recur- 
ring floods and slides"; but, in spite of all the disad- 
vantages, the cost per cubic yard of excavating Cu- 
lebra Cut was only two-thirds the cost of rock exca- 
vation for the Chicago drainage canal. 

And the man who, more than any other, did it was 
Gaillard, the pathetic circumstances of whose death 
have touched the nation 's heart. There is something 
particularly appropriate in the suggestion that a 
monument to him be erected on one of the hills over- 
looking the cut, where it would stand permanently 
as evidence that republics are not ungrateful. 

(Battle Creek, Mich., News, Dec. 10, 1913) 
"IN SIGHT OF THE GOAL " 

There is appropriate comment, both in tone and 
quality, upon the death of Col. David Gaillard, who 
built the Culebra Cut at Panama, and wrecked his 
health, and died while his triumph was about to be 
celebrated. 

And it is being said that it is too bad that he could 

105 



not have lasted until he saw the realization of his 
hopes — and too bad, too, that he wore his life out, 
there, in the accomplishment that took his very self 
before it would yield. 

Neither of these things is too bad, when you come 
to think of it. 

Colonel Gaillard was not working Culebra Cut 
for the sight and sound of the hurrahing millions 
who would celebrate the final completion of the work. 
He was working there because it was his work, and 
his reward was in the knowledge that his papers 
showed him from day to day, that a good day's work 
was being done. 

And as to wearing his life out — why, after all, it 
was only a matter of a few years, anyhow — "and 
whoso would save his life must lose it." This latter 
is written in a higher authority, even, than the en- 
gineering rules by which they chart canals. 

Colonel Gaillard didn 't wear his life out, as a mat- 
ter of fact, nor does any man wear his life out who 
does conscientiously a thing which is his to do. 

Colonel Gaillard built his life into that marvel of 
the ages by which the mountain range of the Isth- 
mus, was separated and the oceans joined. 

Perhaps there is something pathetic in the fact 
that he died "in sight of the goal," but perhaps it 
was just as well. For he knew, at least, that the goal 
had not been missed. 

(Beaumont, Tex., Journal, Dec. 10, 1913) 
IN HONOR OF A HERO OF PEACE 

Col. David DuBose Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, 
U. S. A., and member of the Isthmian Canal Com- 
mission, has passed away. 

106 



From the nature of his ailment since his return 
to this country last August, a fatal ending was ex- 
pected by those closely acquainted with the circum- 
stances, and still his demise at Baltimore has cast 
a gloom over that host which knew him best at the 
big ditch. 

For seven long years this modest individual la- 
bored most heroically on the most difficult task in the 
construction of the Panama Canal. For seven long 
years he stood at his post amidst all the unhealthy 
environment and the discouraging beginnings of that 
work up to almost its very end, undismayed by the 
repeated slides which might have daunted a less con- 
fident and resourceful man. 

As the sun descended the western horizon night 
after night this man would hope against hope that 
the dawn of the next day would not show the work 
of the day before undone, but still he resumed his 
labor with irresistible progress and in the end saw 
the great undertaking nearing completion within the 
time promised, but like the seer of old, was not al- 
lowed to behold its fulfillment. 

On the very day on which his completed work was 
given to the world, he lay unconscious and without 
hope of recovery, and it is one of the inscrutable 
decrees of fate that he should not have been spared 
to witness the culmination of the great undertaking 
in which he bore so notable a part. 

Let the nation shed a tear at the grave of this hero 
of peace. 

(Boston Globe, Dec. 8, 1913) 
SACRIFICED HIS LIFE 

Fate, seemingly unkind, decreed that Lieutenant- 
Colonel Gaillard should not live to participate in the 

107 



final triumphs of American engineering skill on the 
Isthmus of Panama. 

The faithful servant is dead. 

The guns will thunder and the bands will play in 
time to come as the ships of many nations pass in 
procession from the Atlantic to the Pacific, formally 
celebrating the marriage of the oceans, but he will 
not be there to witness and enjoy the spectacle. 

Literally it is true that he sacrificed his life for 
his country. . . . 

We suggest that Culebra Cut might well be re- 
christened Gaillard Cut to perpetuate the name and 
the fame of the man who dug it. 

(The Buffalo Enquirer, Dec. 14, 1913) 

The country has had no martyr of exactly the 
Gaillard kind before. "Culebra" means nothing to 
this country. It is a name that can be spared. ' ' Gail- 
lard" means much. It should be placed where the 
country will ever keep it in mind. What better place 
than on the mighty, continent-cleaving cleft he dug ? 

(Cedar Rapids, la., Gazette, Dec. 10, 1913) 
A HERO WORTH REMEMBERING 

The late Colonel Gaillard, who died in Baltimore 
last week, has been widely eulogized. And certainly 
few Americans have deserved such encomiums as 
have been tendered this man — after he has passed 
away. 

For seven years as member of the Canal Commis- 
sion and Colonel of Engineers, Gaillard labored 
heroically on the Culebra Cut. To him had been as- 
signed the most difficult task in the construction of 

108 



the Panama Canal, nothing less than cutting a water 
path through the backbone of the American conti- 
nent. Undismayed by the repeated slides that might 
have daunted a less confident and resourceful man 
he kept steadily at the task, never sure that dawn 
would not show the work of the day before undone, 
but resuming his irresistible progress that in the end 
completed the great undertaking within the time 
promised. To his professional efficiency he added a 
patriotic purpose of economical administration. 
Most of the time he was without a chief assistant and 
personally supervised details as well as directing the 
general organization. It has been estimated that he 
saved $17,000,000 on the cost of the central division 
of the canal. 

(Chicago Tribune, Aug. 21, 1913) 

GAILLARD OF CULEBRA: A MAN WHO DESERVES WELL 
OF HIS COUNTRY 

If he had held a city against desperate siege for 
month after month, he would have been called "the 

hero of , ' ' every school boy would know his 

name, and a thrill would have run through the na- 
tion when the report of his physical breakdown ap- 
peared in large headlines in the press. 

But David DuBose Gaillard has been engaged in a 
task more difficult, perhaps, and as important to his 
country, and he has paid the penalty of his grim 
resolution, his duty and his enthusiasm, and now lies 
perilously ill in Johns Hopkins Hospital just as his 
splendid service is nearing its completion. Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Gaillard is the man of the Culebra 
Cut. It is he who, day by day, has directed and per- 
sonally led the fight against the treacherous slides, 

109 



mastered their strategy and won the fight for the 
canal. 

For months Colonel Gaillard 's strength has been 
yielding, it is reported, to the strain, yet he has 
worked 12 hours a day much of the time in the stag- 
gering heat of the cut. Finally Nature demanded 
her fee, and Gaillard of Culebra fell like a com- 
mander on the field of victory. Whether he will sur- 
vive or whether he will be restored to health cannot 
now be predicted. But no man who ever laid down 
his life on a field for the republic better deserves its 
gratitude and the memory of his countrymen than 
David DuBose Gaillard, conqueror of Culebra. 

(Chicago Tribune, Dec. 7, 1913) 
GAILLARD OF CULEBRA 

No man who fell, sword in hand, under the flag, 
died for his country more gallantly than David Du- 
Bose Gaillard, the conqueror of Culebra. He gave 
himself without stint while he lived, and he laid his 
life on the altar — "the last full measure of devo- 
tion." 

"Gaillard dug indomitably," says the dispatch an- 
nouncing his death. "Hill after hill found its angle 
of repose, and he checked the landslides, save at Cu- 
caracha and points nearby. Their sliding was per- 
sistent, but had visibly weakened when the engineer 
was compelled to stop his work and seek rest. 

"For the greater period of his work on the Isth- 
mus, Colonel Gaillard was without a chief assistant. 
He wanted to save money. He gave his attention 
not only to the great engineering problems but to 
all the details of shovel work, train work, and drain- 

110 



age. He checked up on small things, and once it was 
computed that by his careful oversight he had saved 
the Government $17,000,000. 

"Men who worked with him said he gave twelve 
hours of each day to the Culebra Cut. In addition 
he had a voice in all matters pertaining to engineer- 
ing work in the Zone, to civil administration, and to 
the general conduct of affairs. 

"The hard work, the nervous strain, the worry, 
and the tropical climate combined broke his health 
at the hour of his final triumph. There was little 
left then to be done but to remove the soft earth of 
the slide at Cucaracha." 

Congress should honor the memory of David Gail- 
lard in some substantial way. It owes it to Gaillard, 
to the Army, and to the American people. 

(Chicago Evening Post, April 30, 1915) 
GAILLARD CUT 

President Wilson has signed an executive order 
changing the name of Culebra Cut in the Panama 
Canal to "Gaillard Cut" in honor of the late Col. 
David D. Gaillard, who died from disease contracted 
in the building of the canal. 

The Post was one of the first newspapers in the 
United States to suggest this tribute to as gallant a 
soldier, as fine an engineer, as splendid a gentleman 
as ever graced the roll of the United States Army. 

Gaillard was one of the knights of the old Round 
Table, transferred from the chivalrous age of 
Launcelot and Guinevere to the practical age of con- 
crete mixers and steam dredges. It seems strange 
but the qualities of Launcelot 's day had as free play 
in the jungle-ridden paths of Panama as they had in 

111 



the court of King Arthur. In both it was the rela- 
tion between man and man that counted. Here Gail- 
lard was knightliness itself. 

From a technical standpoint, the work of Gaillard 
was that of one of the four greatest men that the 
canal has produced. How great his work was, in- 
deed, will probably not be known till the final ver- 
dict of history is passed upon the mighty job of join- 
ing the two oceans. 

To the country "Gaillard Cut" will stand as a 
memorial to an unselfish soldier and a great en- 
gineer. To his friends it will be a monument to a 
gallant knight. In both cases it is fitting and appro- 
priate. 

(Cleveland, Ohio, Leader, Dec. 14, 1913) 

The suggestion is made by the Boston Globe that 
the name Culebra Cut be abandoned and this most 
difficult part of the Panama Canal be officially re- 
cnristened "Gaillard Cut." 

The reasons for this are so obvious and potent 
that it seems almost impossible the idea will not be 
adopted. The cutting of Culebra mountain was the 
greatest feat accomplished in the stupendous canal 
undertaking. By many competent engineers the ob- 
ject sought was considered impossible of fulfillment. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard accomplished the task 
successfully. But the task killed him. 

Literally, Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard gave up his 
life for the success of the Culebra Cut and for the 
Panama Canal. Just as truly he gave up his life for 
his country. The people of the United States owe it 
to themselves to afford him a monument which will 
stand for all time an impressive object lesson of 

112 



American devotion and achievement. And what no- 
bler, more enduring or more fitting monument could 
be selected to bear his name than the great cleft 
with which he split a continent? 

(The Record, Columbia, S. C, Dec. 6, 1913) 
AN EPIC AND ITS HERO 

It looks like the irony of fate that Col. David Du- 
Bose Gaillard, conqueror of Culebra Cut, should die 
at the moment of the culmination and triumph of his 
great achievement, but to the creative genius the 
joy in his work is the chiefest, most prized reward. 
The trump of fame and the acclaim of millions fall- 
ing on his ears could really have added little to the 
pleasure and satisfaction of Colonel Gaillard on the 
completion of his great task. The immortal part of 
him, the spirit that was put into his work and the 
everlasting memorial it will bear of his personality 
and fame to all future times can never die. 

Colonel Gaillard 's friends and kindred will mourn 
without comfort or avail that he should have been 
snatched from them by the inexorable conqueror of 
all at such a moment, but, viewed from the stand- 
point of eternity, is it not most fitting that the crown 
of immortality, in every sense of the word, should 
have been thus placed on the brow of one to whom 
life could add no greater goal of success. 

Pathetic, as it may be, there seems to be an artistic 
fitness that all the poets and creative masters have 
recognized and emphasized that the Tragic muse 
alone is worthy to crown and conclude a great epic 
and its heroes. 



113 



(Davenport, Iowa, Times, Dec. 9, 1913) 

Against the treachery of nature Lieutenant- 
Colonel Gaillard pitted his splendid ability, abund- 
ant vitality and unswerving loyalty. It was a tre- 
mendous fight, but he carried the Culebra Cut 
through to completion. By engineers he will be re- 
membered as the man who dug the Culebra Cut. By 
the army his memory will be treasured as that of 
an officer and a gentleman who embodied the effi- 
ciency and devotion to duty of the service. 

Man changes the face of nature even to the extent 
of sundering continents and uniting the oceans. But 
he pays the price. Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gail- 
lard dug the Culebra Cut and paid for this achieve- 
ment with his life. 

(Frankfort, Ky., Journal, Dec. 10, 1913) 
"GAILLARD OF CULEBRA" 

Lieut-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, who died of 
nervous and mental collapse at Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity as a result of the terrific strain of seven years 
of successful work upon the Culebra Cut of the 
Panama Canal, crowned his life work with the sac- 
rifice of his life. 

When Ismail Pasha set out to build the Suez Canal 
by having thousands of Egyptian laborers dig in the 
ditch and live in unsanitary camps, the lives of 
countless unpaid men were sacrificed. When the 
French tried to dig the Panama Canal, the same 
thing occurred. The United States made the canal 
zone sanitary and the mortality rate among laborers 
was low. But the tremendousness of the engineering 
project put men like Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard 

114 



upon their mettle and they worked unceasingly and 
without regard to the results to their health. 

"Gaillard of Culebra" is one of the nation's 
heroes. A Gaillard statute might suitably be set 
up at Culebra Cut, like that of the French engineer 
de Lesseps, which commands the entrance to the 
Suez. 

(Hingham, Mass., Journal, Dec. 12, 1913) 

It must always remain a source of the deepest re- 
gret to his grateful fellow-citizens that one of the 
three master minds of the Panama Canal should not 
have lived to see the completion of the great work 
with which his name will be forever linked. The 
death of Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard is one of the 
few tragedies connected with that tremendous under- 
taking in whose successful conclusion he played so 
conspicuous a part, and his appreciative countrymen 
will not forget to keep his memory green nor fail to 
see that the full measure of that fame which is his 
due shall be accorded to him, says the Boston Tran- 
script. Posterity will crown with laurel leaves his 
brow and history will generously record the value 
of his services. It may be said of this modest, unas- 
suming and efficient officer who has added such 
lustre to the United States army that he cheerfully 
laid his life upon the altar of his country no less 
than if he had sacrificed it for the flag upon the bat- 
tlefield. Seven years of faithful application to his 
duty in the tropics, years during which he solved 
one after another the engineering problems which 
arose at baffling Culebra, proved too much for his 
strength and health, and so he could not live to see 

115 



the opening of the great waterway which he had 
helped to carve from the living hills. That eight- 
mile cut through the continental divide, its sliding 
sides chained by his genius, will remain a nobler 
monument to his memory than the one which Con- 
gress, no doubt, some day will erect upon the 
Isthmus. 

(Los Angeles Tribune, Dec. 12, 1913) 
THE LATE LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GAILLARD 

Through the rocky heart of the Isthmus stern the 

soldier had carved a way. 
Then, with triumph near and reward at hand, came 

summons he must obey. 
For years his duty — he never shirked — was to toil 

'neath the tropic sun, 
And he answered the call — death's signal note — nor 

knew of the laurels won. 
Ships pushed their prows on the silver path he had 

cut through barren stone, 
As he set out on the longer voyage that each man 

must go alone; 
But flowers heaped high by loving hands were as 

visible forms of prayer 
That the brave rest well, and his voyage end in a 

haven august and fair. 

(Meridian, Miss., Star, Dec. 12, 1913) 
DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

David DuBose Gaillard, the man under whose per- 
sonal direction the Culebra Cut, on the Panama 
Canal was made, who passed away in a Baltimore 
hospital, last week, after months of illness, deserves 
a memorial as much, or more, than many to whose 

116 



memory great piles of granite have been erected in 
this and other lands. 

Mr. Gaillard 's untimely death was due to an 
earnest devotion to duty. He had lived and had 
labored, labored incessantly, in a tropical country 
where such labor as Gaillard performed is calculated 
to debilitate the strongest men. But Gaillard had 
a duty to perform and he performed it, performed 
it at the cost of his life. He staked his great abilities 
against a mountain and won, but he couldn't live to 
glory in his work. 

Wouldn't it be a fine monument to such a man to 
erect, equip and operate a great engineering school 
under his name — a Gaillard School of Engineering .» 
We hope something of this sort will be done by the 
national government. 

(Muscatine, Iowa, Journal, Dec. 6, 1913) 

American army officers have proven their mettle 
in every war and skirmish in which troops of this 
nation have been engaged. In later years they have 
been proving their efficiency and courage in peace as 
well as war. 

No soldier more truly or more nobly gave his life 
in the service of his country. His mission was not 
to decrease the population of the world, but to so 
remake the topography of the world that its popula- 
tion might be more evenly distributed. 

As the natural barriers that once kept communi- 
ties and nations isolated from one another are over- 
come or brushed aside, there comes a more complete 
understanding between section and section, nation 
and nation, continent and continent. With every 

117 



forward step in understanding there comes an equal 
diminution of the causes of strife and hatred. 

In this drawing together of a world no one achieve- 
ment serves to rank with the building of the canal. 
History will deal gratefully with every great leader 
who contributed much to this achievement and high 
among these leaders will stand the name of the 
American soldier-engineer, who conquered Culebra 
at the cost of his own life. 

(New Orleans, La., Times-Democrat, Dec. G, 1913) 

Culebra has figured so often in the newspapers that 
the public is more familiar with it than with any 
other section of the canal. The great cut posed 
many a wearisome problem to the canal builders 
and tested their mettle to the utmost. Five years 
of almost continuous supervision of the work there 
placed a heavy strain upon Colonel Gaillard. He 
bore the burden patiently and uncomplainingly, and 
led his forces to a notable engineering victory. 

In tardy recognition of his service and sacrifice a 
bill was introduced in Congress last month promot- 
ing him to the rank of Colonel. But it was decreed 
that he should not live to witness the consumma- 
tion of his work upon the isthmus nor to enjoy the 
rewards so richly deserved. Colonel Gaillard 's fate 
was peculiarly pathetic. He gave his life to his 
country's service as truly as though he had fallen 
in battle. He gave the best that was in him without 
counting the personal cost. Coming home, phys- 
ically broken and doomed, he had the satisfaction 
of knowing that the important duty assigned to him 
had been successfully performed, and that, to a 

118 



soldier of his ideals and noble traditions, was ample 
recompense. 

(New York Sun, Dec. 6, 1913) 
DAVID DuBOSE GAILLARD 

It is known by all his associates that Col. David 
DuBose Gaillard, U. S. A., who died in Baltimore 
yesterday, succumbed to the strain of his inde- 
fatigable labors as engineer in charge of the Culebra 
Cut. The work of excavation, in which he never 
spared himself, killed him at the age of 54, when 
he had ten years to serve in the army with the pros- 
pect of attaining the highest honors in his profes- 
sion. 

In the Engineer Corps there was no more brilliant 
officer, with the possible exception of Colonel 
Goethals, and certainly none more self-sacrificing in 
the discharge of duty. He lived to complete his 
great work, and what an undertaking it was when 
he had to do almost daily battle with landslides, 
trenching against the enemy and laboriously turning 
its flank! 

Colonel Gaillard never won the fame of his as- 
sociates, Goethals and Gorgas, but his merits were 
scarcely less and his exertions and devotion fully as 
great. 

(New York Herald, Dec. 14, 1913) 

Men who seek to set down the names of the heroes 
of Panama, who have given their all to help make 
the canal a monument to American skill and energy 
for all the world to see, will place high up on the 
list the name of Lieut. -Col. David DuBose Gaillard, 

119 



who "broke the back of a continent," as one who 
observed his colossal task at Panama declared. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard persisted in his work in 
spite of failing health and gave up his life on the 
altar of patriotism no less than does the leader of a 
little band of fighting men who carries his troops 
across a battlefield straight in the face of the enemy 
and against overwhelming odds. 

(New York Tribune, Dec. 6, 1913) 
"DEAD ON THE FIELD OF HONOR" 

A tribute is due to David DuBose Gaillard, who 
yesterday died in his very hour of triumph. Two 
or three other names were more widely known than 
his in connection with our great work at the isthmus, 
but none was entitled to more honor for integrity, de- 
votion and high achievement. It was his lot to 
grapple with the crux of the whole engineering task, 
the Culebra Cut. It was the pitting of a man against 
a mountain, and the man won. He cleared the cut 
from end to end ; and though since his incapacitation 
the treacherous slopes have sought to undo his work, 
he has left to his successors the secret of full 
triumph. The mighty gap in the Cordillera de 
Bando will be his monument. 

The world honors great conquerors. It honors 
even those who conquer fellow men in contest for 
selfish supremacy. Much more should it honor the 
men who conquer hostile or obstructive forces of 
nature for the welfare of mankind. The man who 
smote asunder a mountain chain to make a highway 
for the commerce of the nations and perished as he 
won the victory is as truly as any bloodstained war- 
rior ' ' dead on the field of honor. ' ' 

120 



(New York World, Dec. 6, 1913) 

While the news of the successful flooding of the 
waterway and the passage of the first boats through 
the high-level locks was being greeted with applause 
by millions of his countrymen, the army engineer 
who had pierced the backbone of the continent and 
whose name deserves to be linked with those of 
Goethals and Gorgas as the Conquerors of the Isth- 
mus, was fated to lie in a state of unconsciousness 
in a hospital bed. 

No soldier ever gave up his life to duty on the 
field of battle more truly than did Gaillard, the 
modest, tireless, efficient engineer. 

(New York Journal, Dec. 7, 1913) 
A HERO OF OUR TIME 

A brain trouble caused by overwork in a tropical 
climate caused the death of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Gaillard, who was directly in charge of the excava- 
tion for the Panama Canal cuts. Gaillard was a 
direct victim of his tireless, modest zeal in the con- 
struction of the canal. A worthy lieutenant of 
Goethals, he was absolutely trusted in every detail 
that was ever put into his hands. 

He was the type of man who puts genius into the 
turn of a shovel. He was also of the type of the 
heroic American soldier who, without arrogance, 
without pretense, and often without rest or recre- 
ation, toils all his life long for the honor of his coun- 
try, and not at all for wealth. 

No death in battle, no impetuous leadership of a 
whirling charge, could be braver or more honorable 
than this patient, modest South Carolinian's end. 

121 



His record of brilliant service, calmly rendered over 
his plan or at the excavation's side, is worthy to 
stand with the story of Warren, of Shaw, of Reynolds 
or of Lawton. 

His work will endure ; dead he will have the fame 
that never came to him alive, and that he never 
sought save by patient and self-forgetting diligence 
in his duty. 

(Philadelphia Bulletin, Dec, 1913) 

Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard was described as one 
of the most wonderful organizers the United States 
Army ever developed. He was born at Winnsboro, 
S. C, in 1859, descendant of an old Huguenot family. 
He was graduated from West Point Military 
Academy in 1884 and since that time had won many 
honors in the engineering service. A bill was intro- 
duced in Congress last month promoting him to the 
rank of Colonel in recognition of his distinguished 
services, which culminated in the great engineering 
feat in the Culebra section of the Panama Canal. 
While Culebra Cut was flooded by the blasting of 
Gamboa Dike on October 10th last, Colonel Gaillard 
lay unconscious in his bed at the hospital. 

When Gaillard reached the Canal Zone and looked 
over the scene of his coming labors, he found that 
the French had completed thirty per cent of the dig- 
ging at Culebra necessary for a canal 200 feet in 
width. This left for the American engineer seventy 
per cent of the labor necessary for a 200-foot channel, 
and all the additional work necessary for the 300- 
foot channel which the Americans had decided to 
construct. 

The Culebra Cut runs through the backbone of the 

122 



American continent. It is eight miles long, and it 
was the only place on the Isthmus which presented 
a continuous problem of dry digging. The work 
up to October 10th last was entirely steam-shovel 
work. 

The army officer dug the Culebra Cut ' ' to the bot- 
tom," but at Cucaracha and in its immediate 
vicinity the earth and the rocks of the mountains, 
finding a part of their foundation removed, began 
to move toward and into the excavation. The engi- 
neer dug indomitably; hill after hill found its angle 
of repose, save at Cucaracha and at points close to 
it, where the sliding was persistent. 

The entire work of dry digging in the Culebra 
Cut was completed when Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard 
was stricken and compelled to leave the Zone. 

When Gaillard started his Isthmian work he knew 
that he must overcome the landslides which were 
certain to start when the mountains through which 
he was to make his way showed their footholds were 
becoming insecure. He made his way fighting. 
Literally, he was obliged to shackle the feet of the 
great hills. He did it, and engineers say that his 
work is for all time. 

While the work which confronted Gaillard at 
Culebra Cut was not perhaps the greatest individual 
piece of engineering on the isthmus, it generally was 
regarded as the most trying and probably the most 
difficult because of the problems which were pre- 
sented. Gaillard, during the early years of his con- 
test with the landslides, never knew what a morning 
was to bring forth. Over night the mountains were 
likely to break loose and to cover with their de- 
posit the tracks and even the cars which were used 

123 



to remove deposited material. Steam shovels were 
likely to be overturned, and there was always the 
danger in the rainy season that the slides would 
form dams, cut off the drainage of the cut and flood 
the scene of the working. 

For the greater period of his work on the isthmus, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard was without a chief as- 
sistant whose duty it would have been to look after 
the details. The army officer wanted to save money, 
if possible. He gave his attention not only to the 
greater engineering problems which confronted 
him, but to all the details of shovel work, train 
work, and drainage. He checked up on the small 
things, and it is said that the saving which he ac- 
complished by his individual and careful oversight 
amounted to $17,000,000. 

Men on the isthmus say that Gaillard, as a rule, 
gave twelve hours of each day to the work in Culebra 
Cut. As a member of the Canal Commission he had 
a voice in all matters pertaining to the engineering 
work in the Zone, to civil administration and in the 
general conduct of affairs. It has been said of him 
that he did not know how to rest. 

(Portland, Ore., Journal, Dec. 11, 1913) 

To his memory there can be paid the tribute due 
those who serve their country well. 

Culebra Cut will be his monument. Several moun- 
tains will commemorate his fidelity to duty. 

(The Springfield, Mass., Daily Republican, Dec. 6, 1913) 

Colonel Gaillard 's death is so clearly the result 
of his unremitting toil at the Isthmus that one is 

124 



disposed to rank him very high among "the heroes 
of peace." His monument for all time will be that 
tremendous excavation through the mountain back- 
bone of the isthmus. 

(St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dec. 6, 1913) 

The death of Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard 
in Johns Hopkins Hospital will cause sorrow 
throughout the country, although it was not unex- 
pected. Ever since he was driven away from his 
work on the Panama Canal by Secretary Garrison 
of the War Department, owing to his physical and 
mental condition, there has been little expectation 
of the recovery of his powers, giant* that he was. He 
became a nervous wreck while battling with the 
slides in the Culebra Cut, disasters that for a time 
threatened the success of the greatest engineering 
enterprise of modern times, if not of all history. 

According to the statement of his grief-stricken 
wife, he worked night and day on plans for over- 
coming the slides. Plan after plan he devised and 
tried in vain. He worked into the small hours on 
new plans and arose while it was yet night to per- 
sonally superintend their application. The loss of 
sleep and the incessant worry showed their effect 
and his friends futilely tried to induce him to take 
a rest. He stubbornly persevered until he mastered 
the problem and left only after peremptory orders 
were given by the secretary of war. While the coun- 
try was celebrating the final blast in the great work 
the hero who had for seven years poured out his 



"Though possessed of marvelous energy and vitality, he was 
slender in build. Sibert was "the giant" of the twain. See pp. 
13-14. 

125 



life for its success lay unconscious in the hospital. 
He did not know of the praise lavished upon him. 
He was not aware that a bill had been introduced 
in Congress to make him a colonel as a tribute to 
his efficiency and loyalty. 

(St. Louis Republic, Aug. 18, 1913) 
AT GAILLARD'S BEDSIDE 

Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard has returned 
from Panama broken in health. It will be months, 
physicians say, before he will be able to resume his 
duties. For seven years he has been in charge of 
the central division of the canal work, the division 
that includes the Culebra Cut. Everybody knows 
about Culebra Cut, but comparatively few know 
about Gaillard. And while at first glance that 
may not seem quite fair, we guess, after all, it is 
as it should be. Certainly the spirit of self-efface- 
ment that has characterized the men who have 
directed the digging of the canal is one of the fine 
things about that great work. Into that work they 
have poured their lives with a valor and loyalty and 
fidelity that would add luster to the annals of any 
age. "Peace hath her victories no less renowned 
than war," and, therefore, it has its battles which 
call for the same stern, steadfast qualities that win 
immortality on the field of blood. The shattered 
Gaillard has filed an account against posterity, but 
we of his own day would be delinquent if we did 
not pause at the bedside of this officer and gentle- 
man and splendid American to wish him a speedy 
recovery. 



126 



(St. Louis Republic, Dec. 6, 1913) 
THE SLEEPER AT ARLINGTON 

Gaillard sleeps at Arlington, and for a moment 
there is a pause in the acclaim of the success at 
Panama. For a moment ' ' the tumult and the shout- 
ing dies, ' ' and it is given us to think, not about the 
Isthmian miracle, but of the labor of the men who 
wrought it. 

Gaillard was chosen to dig the Culebra Cut. He 
had prepared himself for this supreme task by a 
life of study. Throughout his career this officer and 
gentleman had been an indefatigable worker. In 
various parts of the country there are lasting me- 
morials to the service he has rendered his Govern- 
ment. Even before Panama his name, in military 
circles, had become a sort of tradition. He was the 
man for the job that could not be done but had to be 
done. And so he came to the Isthmus. 

Since his death we have had glimpses of days 
under an equatorial sun followed by nights over blue 
prints. The long rations of toil and the short rations 
of rest finally saw the slides of Culebra brought to 
check. They also saw the end of Gaillard. The 
faithful brain and sturdy body broke under the re- 
morseless drive — but not until the impossible had 
been accomplished, not until the Gaillard tradition 
was a thing for admiration and reverence. 

This son of South Carolina who sleeps at Arling- 
ton lives in history, one of that gallant company 
best fitted to survive. 



127 



(St. Louis Republic, Dec. 14, 1913) 

Brig.-Gen. E. J. Spencer, John A. Laird, and other 
officers of the Third Regiment, Volunteer Engineers, 
which Lieut. -Col. David DuBose Gaillard mustered 
here at Jefferson Barracks during the Spanish War, 
are preparing to prosecute a movement to erect a 
monument to the " wizard of Culebra Cut" some- 
where along that giant masterpiece of engineering 
achievement. 

The idea was broached recently in an editorial in 
The Republic which called attention to the ap- 
propriateness of such a testimonial by the American 
people to the canal builder on the site of his greatest 
work. 

Colonel Gaillard probably nowhere is remembered 
more intimately or affectionately than in St. Louis, 
which saw his entry into the really big period of his 
life when, in July, 1898, he came to St. Louis as a 
Captain in the regular Army of the United States to 
recruit and command a regiment of engineers for 
service in Cuba, or wherever necessary. He was 
known in St. Louis and to prominent St. Louisans 
as a great man long before his master work at the 
canal had demonstrated to the world his unequaled 
ability and efficiency. 

As his greater triumphs were to come in times of 
peace, so did Colonel Gaillard 's earlier successes 
elicit attention and commendation as those of a con- 
structive, rather than a destructive, agency. His 
engineers were ordered to Cuba after the fighting 
was over and he and his engineers, men of high 
standing in their own country and of exceptional 
ability, landed in a territory devastated by roving 

128 



bands of insurgents, of depredating Spanish troops 
and of pioneering American forces. 

His was the duty to repair, reconstruct and con- 
struct out of this wreck of war a groundwork for the 
newer life that was to follow in the wake of oppres- 
sion and ruin. 

When Colonel Gaillard's engineers reached Cien- 
fuegos the death rate was 138 a week. When they 
left it, six weeks later with its sanitation system 
completed, the week's mortality had dwindled to 
twenty-nine. The city had been thoroughly sur- 
veyed, water supply investigated, artesian wells 
bored, natural water falls studied as water supply, 
800 miles of roads reconnoitered and mapped, com- 
plete military reconnoissance map of Cienfuegos and 
vicinity completed, complete reports on conditions 
and capabilities of railroads of the province, reports 
in improvements of different barracks in province 
with estimates, supervision of repairs, warehouse 
construction, bridge repairs, wharf and dock repairs, 
and a hydrographic survey of Cienfuegos Harbor 
with 2,600 soundings. 

"We knew him for a great man long before the 
rest of the world came to recognize him to be such," 
said one of these who served as a lieutenant under 
him. "We saw in his wonderful faculty of com- 
mand over men, his ability to whip the rawest kind 
of a recruit into a disciplined, efficient soldier and 
his remarkable genius for constructive engineering 
work and scope of application the manifestations of 
a master mind and we confidently looked forward 
to the day when he would meet some task too big 
for the other fellow to do — and do it. 

"I visited Culebra Cut with him, and when I 

129 



looked at that amazing and awe-inspiring achieve- 
ment of this quiet and detennined man I knew that 
the qualities we all knew so well he possessed at last 
had found a field worthy of them. 

"He worked and thought always of the canal and 
the cut with its treacherous slides that were enough 
almost to wring surrender from any heart less 
stanch than his own, but he never gave up and his 
work triumphed in the end." 

(St. Louis Republic, Dec. 15, 1914) 
A MONUMENT AT CULEBRA 

The Republic's suggestion that a monument be 
erected to Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard on the site 
of Culebra Cut has met with response from many St. 
Louisans who, as members of the Third Regiment, 
Volunteer Engineers, in the Spanish-American War, 
were under the command of the then Captain Gail- 
lard. That was an exceptional regiment which was 
mustered in at Jefferson Barracks, both as to officers 
and as to men. But it was especially exceptional 
as regards its commanding officer, David DuBose 
Gaillard. His genuis for leadership and tireless pas- 
sion for perfection in every detail making for regi- 
mental efficiency impressed officers and men alike. 
While yet Culebra Cut was a pestilential tropic 
growth and the Canal was a matter of discussion at 
Washington and Bogota, those men who knew Gail- 
lard knew that here was real greatness awaiting only 
an opportunity. 

They believed in him supremely. They saw him 
make finished soldiers of untrained men. They saw 
a volunteer camp, under his exacting patience, attain 

130 



to regular army standards of sanitation, routine and 
discipline. They saw him later drive filth and death 
and disorder out of Santa Clara Province. Some 
years afterwards they saw him at the head of an 
engineering corps on the Mississippi River, still the 
same calm, achieving force, doing, as always, the 
things to be done. 

Finally, the chance for the great thing came — the 
canal impossibility, the unconquerable Culebra Cut. 
That is history now, and there is another grave at 
Arlington. But to the men of the Third who knew 
Gaillard it is prophecy fulfilled and faith vindi- 
cated. 

It is easy to understand why they want to see a 
monument at Culebra Cut and why they want to take 
a part in the building of it. For those men "the 
man is dead, but Gaillard is not dead." 

(Washington Times, Dec. 6, 1913) 

Culebra Cut is a reality, probably for centuries, 
at least, but the man who made it such is no more. 

We have been making sacrifices in Panama in life 
as well as treasure, even if what we have given up 
as the price of that vast undertaking is far less than 
the appalling losses of the French. And the most 
conspicuous sacrifice yet yielded is Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Gaillard. 

Men marveled that Gaillard could seem to set the 
laws of nature at naught in his concentration on the 
task of removing the tremendous mass of earth that 
filled the space occupied by what is now Culebra 
Cut. He worked harder in a climate that demanded 
a lessening of strain than he would have worked 

131 



normally in the stimulating atmosphere of the 
United States. He showed mercy to his subordinates 
but none to himself. And he has paid the price. 

(Washington Times, Dec. 19, 1913) 

The name of Gaillard possesses a charm for those 
who watched the parting of a strip of earth that 
the Panama Canal might take its place among the 
wonders of the world. He was the man in charge 
of the Culebra Cut section of this great project, un- 
dertaken by one nation, but affecting every nation 
with ships upon the seas. . . . His death came 
while the echoes of this accomplishment echoed 
round the world, and when the gates are opened 
eventually to all the ships that care to enter, his 
figure will be missing among the list of wonder 
workers who will receive the plaudits of civilized 
mankind. 

(Wilmington, Del., Journal, Dec. 12, 1913) 

Lieut. -Col. David DuBose Gaillard, United States 
engineer, met death as a result of storming the 
ramparts of nature and disease in the great work of 
building the Panama Canal. Knowing the clanger, 
he kept his face turned resolutely toward it, fighting 
tirelessly and intelligently until stricken down. The 
canal has developed many heroes and the name of 
Colonel Gaillard will be placed well up toward the 
top of the list. 



132 



CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF COLONEL 
GAILLARD UPON HIS APPOINT- 
MENT TO THE ISTHMIAN 
CANAL CONMISSION 
IN 1907 



CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF COLONEL GAIL- 
LARD UPON HIS APPOINTMENT TO THE 
ISTHMIAN CANAL COMMISSION IN 1907 

The New York Times, under date of April 28, 1907, in an 
article on "The Men Who Will Build the Panama Canal," gives 
the following sketch of Colonel Gaillard: 

Major David DuBose Gaillard, the second engi- 
neer in charge, is a native of South Carolina. He is 
the youngest looking of the three. But Major Gail- 
lard's career has been exceedingly varied. In fact 
scarcely any officer in the army has had as varied 
an experience or has been intrusted with so many 
important Government commissions as Major Gail- 
lard. And all these commissions have been of a 
peculiar character. He graduated at West Point in 
1884, when he received his commission, but not once 
since that time has he been with a regiment or a 
battalion except during the Spanish War, when he 
was Colonel of an engineer regiment. 

Major Gaillard is a rather slim man, and though 
he is forty-eight years old, or will be in Septem- 
ber, he doesn't look to be over thirty-five. Like the 
other army officers, he is well preserved, though he 
has seen stern service. He has been very nearly 
everywhere that an army officer is ever sent, either 
in peace or in war, except to the Philippine Islands. 

His career has been a more picturesque one, per- 
haps, than either of the other two engineers. He 
has been engaged on many very interesting mis- 
sions. He had been out of West Point but a few 

135 



years, having been a teacher in the Engineer School 
of Application and an assistant on the St. John's 
River jetties and other river and harbor work in 
Florida, when he was appointed in 1891 by the Pres- 
ident one of the three Commissioners to make the 
boundary line between Mexico and the United 
States from El Paso, Texas, to the Pacific Ocean. 
Major Gaillard, then Lieutenant Gaillard, had many 
interesting and romantic experiences while engaged 
in this work — riding horseback five or six hundred 
miles on the stretch, camping in the desert with one 
or two companions, and getting on familiar terms 
with jackrabbits, coyotes, and Mexicans. When he 
completed this work he was personally compli- 
mented in a State paper by the Secretary of State. 
Then he was ordered on duty in the construction 
of fortifications and a sea wall at Fort Monroe. 

One of the most valuable works on which Major 
Gaillard has been engaged is the Washington Aque- 
duct, though his connection with it and the valuable 
work which he did are appreciated by only a few, 
because, as said above, army engineers are accus- 
tomed to doing things without press agents or brass 
bands. He was but a First Lieutenant when he was 
put in sole charge of this work, and it was he who 
had charge of constructing the Great Falls dam and 
of cleaning out, for the first time since its construc- 
tion, the conduit. 

He went from Washington to Alaska upon an im- 
portant secret work of the Government, the exact 
nature of which does not appear in the army orders, 
and is not generally known, even among Major 
Gaillard 's most intimate friends, because it had 
some relation with the international complications 

136 



between this country and England. Nominally, and 
as the order reads, he was sent there upon work on 
the Portland Channel. After the completion of this 
work, for which he was highly complimented by 
the Secretary of War, he was put on the staff of 
Gen. Wade, and served at Tampa and at Chicka- 
mauga. During the war with Spain, Major Gaillard 
recruited and organized the Third United States 
Volunteer Engineers and became Colonel of that 
regiment, remaining so until the regiment was 
mustered out in 1899. His regiment was sent to 
Cuba just at the close of the war, and he was placed 
in charge of the Department of Santa Clara, Cuba. 

Among the most important, though perhaps less 
spectacular, sanitary works done in Cuba were those 
done under the direction of Major Gaillard. He 
took charge of the sanitary work in Cienfuegos, 
Matanzas, and other cities of Cuba. The work which 
he did there stands as a monument to the efficiency 
and the strength of the man, as well as to the credit 
of the country. Many columns have been written 
about how General Leonard Wood cleaned up 
Havana. Very little has been said about how Major 
Gaillard cleaned up Cienfuegos and Matanzas. Gen- 
eral Wood was Colonel of the Rough Riders, which, 
as the world knows, had a very efficient corps of 
press agents. The Third Engineers had no press 
agent, but it had a man at the head of it, and this 
man was educated and trained in the regular army, 
and was not accustomed to press agents or the 
blowing of the horn to announce to the world what 
he had done. No reflection is meant upon General 
Wood. Perhaps Major Gaillard should have had 
a press agent. 

137 



Some very important as well as dramatic work 
was done by the Third Regiment under Colonel Gail- 
lard. It was chosen by Gen. James H. Wilson to 
disarm at midnight and place under arrest the mem- 
bers of the Sixth Virginia Colored Volunteer In- 
fantry at Macon, Georgia, in 1898. The negro 
troops were mutinous and on the rampage gener- 
ally, and proposed to shoot up the town of Macon, 
somewhat similar in manner to the way the troops 
of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry shot up Brownsville. 
Colonel Gaillard took his regiment out at midnight, 
surrounded the negro regiment, and took their guns 
away from them, put the whole regiment under 
arrest, and kept it there for thirty days without 
arms of any description. The negro regiment was 
then mustered out of service. Senator Foraker be- 
ing engaged on something else at that particular 
time did not ring the fire alarm, and very little 
was heard about it, but it was done, and Major 
Gaillard was the man who did it. 

After his volunteer regiment was mustered out 
Major Gaillard was again assigned to the Washing- 
ton Aqueduct, but was soon appointed Assistant 
Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia. 
He was placed in entire charge of the Water, Sewer, 
and Building Departments. In 1901 he was ordered 
to Duluth and placed in charge of all river and 
harbor improvements on Lake Superior. Here, it 
is worthy of mention, he completed the largest 
dredging contract ever let by the United States Gov- 
ernment, taking out over twenty-one million cubic 
yards. 

Major Gaillard is also one of the closest students 
in the army, and one of the most scholarly. For 

138 



years he devoted his attention to the subject of wave 
action. The results of his studies were a few years 
ago published by the Government as one of the ' ' pro- 
fessional papers of the Corps of Engineers" under 
the title of "Wave Action." This work attracted 
wide attention. Engineers throughout many coun- 
tries of the world have written letters to him about 
it. He also prepared a number of papers for various 
engineering societies, and is one of the foremost au- 
thorities on certain phases of engineering. Before 
becoming a member of the General Staff years ago 
he was one of the professors in the War College at 
Washington. Thus this engineer has had all sorts 
of experiences. In every one of his many commis- 
sions he has acquitted himself with such signal abil- 
ity, given such eminent satisfaction to the authori- 
ties which appointed him, that he is known as a man 
fitted for great undertakings. 



139 



NEW BOOK BY COLONEL GAILLARD 

Lieut. Jos. A. Baer (Sixth Cavalry), writing in Harper's 
Weekly (issue of April 27, 1907, vol. 51, pp. 602-605), entitled his 
article: "Uncle Sam — Canal Digger." 

Scientific books and publications too numerous 
to mention have been written by members of the 
engineer corps. One of the latest is by Major D. D. 
Gaillard on Wave Action in Relation to Engineering 
Structures. Major Gaillard is one of the engineer 
officers detailed as assistant to Lieutenant-Colonel 
Goethals in the work of completing the Panama 
Canal. The treatise is on an entirely new field and 
shows the originality and thoroughness of the 
author. This same originality he displayed in his 
work on the Duluth Harbor improvements. In the 
construction of his breakwater he evolved a method 
of moulding his concrete blocks in place under- 
water. A folding form to mould a block of required 
section was lowered into the water and filled with 
concrete. When this had set the form was opened, 
drawn up, and moved two form-lengths forward and 
another block moulded. The space between these 
two blocks was then moulded in by a second form 
and a continuous concrete wall thus built. From 
Duluth Major Gaillard went to Washington, where 
he served on the General Staff. . . . 

Not the least important river and harbor serv- 
ice that the Engineer Corps has rendered the country 
is the work of the Engineer Board in killing un 
worthy improvement appropriation schemes. This 
and their construction work are necessarily so im- 

140 



portant in the eyes of Congress that there is dan- 
ger that the true weight of the Panama Canal work 
may be lost sight of. The digging of the canal is 
a project that has baffled engineers for four cen- 
turies. It is the greatest administrative problem 
of the age. To succeed, the office of the chief of 
engineers must be free to concentrate all its ener- 
gies upon this one project — everything else is sec- 
ondary. Until the canal is well under way, let the 
army engineers alone. 



141 



THE FUNERAL 



THE FUNERAL 

By Stephen M. Foote, Colonel Coast Artillary Corps, U. S. A. 
(Late Major, Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers) 

The funeral ceremonies were held in Washington, 
D. C, and Arlington, Va., on December 8th, 1913, a 
raw and gloomy day. The body was brought from 
Baltimore on that date, transferred from the station 
to the church, and there at 2 :30 p. m. was taken in 
charge by the military escort. 

Although best known to the world as a civil engi- 
neer, Gaillard was a soldier by birth, education and 
instincts and it was therefore eminently fitting that 
the final disposition of his earthly remains should 
be through the impressive ceremony of a military 
funeral. The escort consisted of the Battalion of 
United States Engineers and Band from Washing- 
ton Barracks. Services were held at St. John's 
Episcopal Church, the "Church of the Presidents," 
Sixteenth and H Streets. The chancel was filled 
with floral offerings from the President of the 
United States and Mrs. Wilson, Secretary of 
War and Mrs. Garrison, the Chief of Engineers, 
the Officers of the Engineer Corps in Washington, 
the Third U. S. Volunteer Engineers, the class of 
'84 at West Point, the Aqueduct Office (Washing- 
ton), the Isthmian Canal Commission (Panama Of- 
fice), the Isthmian Canal Commission (Washington 
Office), the Directors of the Panama Railroad, the 

145 



►Senators from South Carolina, the Representatives 
from South Carolina, the Municipality of Winns- 
boro, S. C, besides many from personal friends. 

The casket was draped in the National Flag, to 
which he had devoted nearly the whole of his life. 

Mrs. Gaillard was attended by her son, Pierre, and 
other members of the family. 

The President was not able to attend, but Mrs. 
Wilson was present in the pew immediately behind 
the family. 

Behind the President's pew sat the Secretary of 
War, Hon. Lindley M. Garrison; the Assistant Secre- 
tary of War, Hon. Henry S. Breckinridge; and the 
Chief of Staff, Major-General Leonard Wood. Two 
pews were occupied by representatives of the 3d 
Volunteer Engineers. Colonel Eugene J. Spencer, 
Captain Frank L. Averill, Lieutenants Hamilton, 
Barney, Baumgardner, Sergeant Grove and others 
were present. 

Mrs. Averill was there, also, and Mrs. Jadwin. 
Colonel Edgar Jadwin Was unfortunately on duty 
as a witness before the United States Court in Gal- 
veston, Texas, and could not be present. Col. Henry 
C. Davis, Gaillard 's brother-in-law, was on his way 
to the Philippines. 

Two pews were reserved for the Class of 1884, 
Gaillard 's class at West Point. In them sat 
Colonels Edwin B. Babbitt, Henry D. Styer and E. 
F. Ladd, Maj. D'R. Cabell, Mr. Constant E. Jones, 
Mr. James A. Long, Mr. M. Nibben, Mr. and Mrs. 
Edward B. Clark, Mrs. Harry Taylor and Mrs. 
Stephen M. Foote. Colonel W. L. Sibert had started 
a few days before on his return trip to Panama. 

Two pews were reserved for the South Carolina 

146 



Congressional delegation. In them sat Senator and 
Mrs. Benjamin R. Tillman, Senator and Mrs. Elli- 
son D. Smith, Mrs. Finley and Mr. David E. Finley, 
Jr., wife and son of Representative Finley, and Rep- 
resentatives Wyatt Aiken, James F. Byrnes, David 
E. Finley, Asbury F. Lever, Jos. T. Johnson, Richard 
S. Whaley and J. Willard Ragsdale. 

Among others in attendance were noted Lieut. 
(Jen. John C. Bates, retired, and Brig.-Gen. John 
M. Wilson, retired, and many officers of the Corps 
of Engineers on both the active and retired list. 

The pallbearers, in full dress uniform, were the 
following: 

Col. William M. Black, Corps of Engineers; 

Col. Stephen M. Foote, Coast Artillery Corps ; 

Col. Edward Burr, Corps of Engineers; 

Col. William C. Langfitt, Corps of Engineers; 

Lieut. -Col. Harry Taylor, Corps of Engineers; 

Lieut.-Col. Joseph E. Kuhn, Corps of Engineers ; 

Lieut. -Col. Chester Harding, Corps of Engineers; 

Lieut.-Col. Edgar A. Mearns, retired, Medical De- 
partment. 

The services at the church were conducted by 
Rev. Roland Cotton Smith, rector of St. John's; Rev. 
Dr. Randolph H. McKim, rector of the Church of the 
Epiphany; Rev. Dr. Williamson Smith, and Rev. 
E. S. Dunlap, assistant to the rector of St. John's. 

The vested choir sang "Rock of Ages," and 
"Asleep in Jesus," Gaillard's favorite hymns. 

The casket was placed on an artillery caisson and 
the cortege proceeded to beautiful Arlington, the 
National Cemetery. 

The final words of the ritual were pronounced by 
Rev. E. S. Dunlap. Three volleys were fired by the 

147 



Engineer battalion and "Taps" was sounded b) r 
Chief Musician Frank J. Weber, who was band 
leader of Gaillard's regiment, the 3d Engineers. 

The grave is on a southern slope, near the last 
resting place of many another soldier who gave his 
life in the service of his country. 

(The State, Columbia, S. C, Dec. 14, 1913) 

The four companies composing the engineer bat- 
talion stationed in Washington were drawn up at 
"present arms" while the casket, flag draped, was 
borne into the church. Only two floral pieces were 
placed upon it with the colors — a beautiful bunch of 
carnations and palm leaves which went from the 
White House to Baltimore — the personal token of 
sympathy from the wife of the president to the 
widow of the distinguished engineer — and a crescent 
from the Third United States engineers. All other 
flowers were placed in the church — a magnificent 
display, filling the entire chancel. 

MRS. GAILLARD TO THE THIRD U. S. VOLUNTEER 
ENGINEERS 

Mrs. Gaillard, in a letter to the Third U. S. Volun- 
teer Engineer Association, expressed her deep ap- 
preciation of the action of the Regiment in the hour 
of affliction. 

Ridgeway, So. Ca., 
16 December, 1913. 
E. M. Pirkey, Esq., 

Sec. 3rd U. S. V. Engrs. 
My Dear Mr. Pirkey: 

Will you, as Secretary, express to the 3rd Engl 
neers my very deep and warm appreciation of their 

148 



sympathy in this time of sorrow, and my thanks for 
the magnificent crescent of red and white roses, the 
engineer colors, and the beautiful lilies sent to Balti- 
more, as tributes to my husband? These were 
placed on the casket, over the flag he served so well, 
and went with him to Arlington. Of all the offer- 
ings, I am sure none could have been more precious 
to him, could he have known. He loved his regi- 
ment, as it grew under his eyes to that wonderful 
efficiency finally attained, it filled his heart with 
pride and affection. When it ceased to exist, he felt 
something gone out of his life, until in the reunions 
he realized that though officially mustered out, they 
were still bound together by ties of affection and 
trust, ties only developed when men have been 
thrown together as men and have stood shoulder to 
shoulder. Of all his achievements, not even except- 
ing Culebra Cut, there was none in which he felt 
greater pride than in the Regiment of 3rd Engineers 
and their wonderful record. They tell me that it 
was Mr. Weber, our band leader, who sounded taps 
over the grave. I am pleased that it was one who 
loved him, who sounded for him and for me, ' ' Lights 
Out." 

My husband was a man so modest that satisfac- 
tion of work well done was all the reward he de- 
sired, but could he have known of the spontaneous 
and appreciative "Well done, thou good and faith- 
ful servant, ' ' sent up by the entire country, he would 
have been deeply touched, and for me to feel that his 
sacrifice is so appreciated, must in time soften my 
sorrow. The country loses only the engineer, but 
we, his friends, lose the man, and in the emptiness he 
leaves behind him, and in my loneliness I shall al- 

149 



ways remember and appreciate the warm sympathy 
of the dear 3rd ; and it will comfort and help me, for 
like him I loved it and was proud of it; and feeling 
that they know this, I am, 

Most faithfully yours and theirs, 

Katherine Gaillard. 



150 



THE GAILLARD MEMORIALS 



THE GAILLARD MEMORIALS 

ORDER DESIGNATING "CAMP GAILLARD" 

War Department, 
The Adjutant General's Office, 
Washington, February 6, 1915. 

From: The Adjutant General of the Army. 

To: The Commanding General, Eastern Depart- 

ment, Governors Island, New York. 

Subject: Name of new post at Culebra, Canal Zone. 

Referring to your indorsement of January 16, 
1915, on letter dated January 15, 1915, from the com- 
manding officer, 29th Infantry, on the above stated 
subject, I am directed by the Secretary of War to 
inform you that the new post at Culebra, Canal Zone, 
is designated and will, hereafter, be known as Camp 
Gail lard, in honor of the late Lieut. -Col. David DuB. 
Gail lard, Corps of Engineers. 

H. P. McCain. 
By command of Major General Murray: 

Eben Swift, 
Colonel, General Staff, 
Chief of Staff. 

"CULEBRA" RENAMED "GAILLARD CUT" 

The public sentiment in favor of renaming "Cule- 
bra ' ' in honor of Colonel Gaillard, was voiced in va- 
rious resolutions, among which may be noted the fol- 
lowing by the Chicago Association of Commerce : 

The Executive Committee of the Chicago Associa- 
tion of Commerce, upon the initiative of the subdivi- 

153 



sion of Engineers of the Association on July 10, 
1915, by unanimous vote, adopted the following- 
resolution: 

Whereas, David DuBose Gaillard, lieutenant- 
colonel, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, 
late an Isthmian Canal Commissioner in charge of 
the Culebra Division, died December fifth, nineteen 
hundred and thirteen, from disease resulting from 
his long and arduous service in the construction of 
the Panama Canal, and 

Whereas, his untimely death deprived him and his 
family of the public honors and material rewards 
which he had justly earned, therefore be it 

Resolved, That the Chicago Association of Com- 
merce concur in the recommendation of the Engi- 
neers' Subdivision of the Association that the great 
work of David DuBose Gaillard in the service of his 
country should be appropriately recognized; that 
Culebra Cut be henceforth called the Gaillard Cut 
and a monument inscribed as a memorial to the serv- 
ice and sacrifice of Colonel Gaillard be erected on 
the banks of the Gaillard Cut. 

EXECUTIVE ORDER 

The President issued an Executive Order renam- 
ing Culebra, as follows : 

It is hereby ordered that the portion of the Pan- 
ama Canal through the Continental Divide hereto- 
fore known as ''Culebra Cut" shall hereafter be 
named "Gaillard Cut" in honor of the late Lieut.- 
Col. D. D. Gaillard, Corps Engr. United States 
Army. 

As a member of the Isthmian Canal Commission 

154 




EL 



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col ri^s-vobENGrr^r-pr. 

fmwm kthmfan canal com wr^fw 

CLASS OF MM 

nonu sept* 4*1859- died dec* 5^215 



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^ttil a/r jifu-A arr of thl r^r iama cai jal- 

ffF- OAVI. TTfll f/XiT MEASURE OF DEVOTION 

Arr-r-r/jATivf-; r?£SOUiT(OM5-riorfe of 

i[rdfaf£ft<T(Xiws. dbo *<**-- senate rinn«f;«c$i5 

— ■""" '♦ — — — 

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Tablet erected in Cullum Hall, West Point, N. Y. 

by the Class of 1884 

United States Military Academy 

Unveiled June 11, 1914, on the 30th anniversary of 
Colonel Gaillard's graduation 



from March 16, 1907, to December 5, 1913, Lieut.- 
Col. Gaillard was in charge of the work in Culebra 
Cut until its virtual completion, being compelled to 
abandon his duties in July, 1913, through an illness 
which culminated in his death on December 5, 1913. 
His period of Panama Canal Service included the 
years of most active construction work. He brought 
to the service trained ability of the highest class, un- 
tiring zeal, and unswerving devotion to duty. 

I deem it a fitting recognition of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Gaillard 's service to the country to re-name 
in his honor, the scene of his life's triumph. 

(Signed) Woodrow Wilson. 
The White House, 
28 April, 1915. 

'84 WEST POINT MEMORIAL TABLET 
(From '84 Bulletin, West Point, July 1, 1914.) 

The Class of 1884, United States Military 
Academy, at its 30th reunion at West Point in June, 
1914, unveiled a memorial tablet to Colonel Gaillard. 

Colonel Edwin E. Babbitt, on behalf of the Class 
of 1884, spoke at the unveiling as follows: 

" '84": 

We gather here today as a token of respect and 
admiration. 

Nothing that I can say would add a tithe to the 
fame of the classmate whose name appears on the 
tablet before us. Davy, of himself, has written his 
name in everlasting letters in the minds of men. 
But with us, his classmates, even before this great 
work came to him, his loving personality inscribed 
his name upon our hearts. 

Year by year, as our members dwindle, some one 

155 



of '84 will stand here as we are now and remember 
more the dear classmate than the great engineer. 

It has always seemed to me that no matter how 
great the mind and personality, he who did not win 
the hearts, but only the minds of his associates, 
failed in a requisite of greatness. 

Davy warmed to him the minds and hearts of all 
who knew him. 

A few weeks ago Dick Richardson gathered to- 
gether a number of the class in Washington where 
some spoke of Gaillarcl with sadness. Dick objected — 
"To few men," he said, "does great opportunity 
come ; to Davy it appeared and he was equal to the 
task and passed over the divide in the fullness of 
victory. No greater could come to any man. ' ' 

HUGUENOT MEMORIAL 

The Huguenot Society of South Carolina and the 
Huguenot Church Aid Society have erected a tablet 
to the memory of Colonel Gaillard. This tablet is 
on the east wall of the interior of the old Huguenot 
Church in Charleston, S. C, to the right of the pulpit. 
In its immediate vicinity there are a number of 
tablets of distinguished Huguenots; among others — - 
Lanier, Maury, Martha Washington and Gen. W. H. 
F. Lee. 

GENERAL ORDERS NO. 31 
(Here given in full; quoted in part on page 65 under "Offi- 
cial Actions.") 

War Department, 
Office of the Chief of Engineers, 
Washington, December 9, 1913. 
General Orders, No. 31. 

To the Corps of Engineers is announced the sad 
intelligence of the death of Lieut. -Col. David DuB. 

156 



David duBosE Gaillard U.S.A. 
So.Ca. Culebra Cut Panama. 
1859 — 1913. 



MEMORIAL TABLET 

Erected by the Huguenot Church and the Huguenot Aid Society 

on the east interior wall and to the right of the pulpit 

in the Huguenot Church, Charleston, S. C. 



Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, which occurred at 
Baltimore, Md., on December 5, 1913. 

Colonel Gaillard was bom in South Carolina Sep- 
tember 4, 1859. He was graduated from the United 
States Military Academy and promoted in the Army 
to second lieutenant, Corps of Engineers, June 15, 
1884, and passed through all the intermediate grades 
to that of lieutenant-colonel, which he reached April 
11, 1909. 

He served with the Battalion of Engineers at Wil- 
lets Point, N. Y., September 3, 1884, to April 18, 
1887; as assistant to the officer in charge of river and 
harbor works in Florida until November, 1891; as 
member of the International Boundary Commission 
between the United States and Mexico, November, 
1891, to November, 1896; assistant in local charge of 
defensive works at Fort Monroe, Va., February 12 
to October 10, 1895; assistant in local charge of 
Washington Aqueduct and in charge of Washington 
Aqueduct and water supply of the city of Washing- 
ton, D. C, October 11, 1895, to May 3, 1898, except 
when engaged on survey of Portland Channel, 
Alaska, August to November, 1896; engineer officer 
on the staff of Maj.-Gen. James F. Wade, United 
States Volunteers, May 6 to June 11, 1898. He was 
appointed colonel, Third Regiment, United States 
Volunteer Engineers, June 7, 1898, and was in com- 
mand of his regiment in the United States and in 
Cuba from June 12, 1898, to May 17, 1899, when 
honorably mustered out of volunteer service. 

Served as assistant in connection with the Wash- 
ington Aqueduct, May 22 to September 9, 1899; as 
assistant to the Engineer Commissioner, District of 
Columbia, September 9, 1899, to March 6, 1901; in 

157 



charge of river and harbor works, with station at 
Duluth, Minn., March 9, 1901, to June 6, 1903; on 
special duty in connection with the General Staff 
Corps, at Vancouver Barracks, Wash., June 9, 1903, 
to January 11, 1904; a member of the General Staff 
Corps, August 15, 1903, to May 18, 1904; as Chief 
of Staff, Department of the Columbia, October 13, 

1903, to January 9, 1904; assistant to the Chief of 
Staff of the Northern Division, January 15 to Oc- 
tober 31, 1904; on special duty at Headquarters of 
the Northern Division, November 1-13, 1904; under 
instruction at the Army War College, November 14, 

1904, to March, 1905. Member of the General Staff 
Corps, March 23, 1905, to March 22, 1907; assistant 
to the Chief of Staff of the Expedition to Cuba, Sep- 
tember 29, 1906, to February 21, 1907. Member of 
the Isthmian Canal Commission March 22, 1907. 
Supervisory engineer in charge of dredging in the 
harbors, of building the necessary breakwaters, and 
of all excavations in the canal prism, except that in- 
cidental to lock and dam construction, April, 1907, 
to June, 1908; Division Engineer, Central Division 
(including Culebra Cut), Isthmian Canal, July, 1908, 
to the date of his death. 

On December 6, 1913, the House of Representa- 
tives of the United States adopted the following 
resolution: 

"Resolved, That the House of Representatives 
has heard with profound sorrow of the death of 
Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, for Avhose con- 
spicuous and valuable services in connection with 
the construction of the Panama Canal the Nation is 
indebted. 

158 



"Resolved, That the Clerk of the House transmit 
a copy of these resolutions to the family of the de- 
ceased." 

On December 8, 1913, the Senate of the United 
States adopted the following- resolution: 

"Resolved, That the Senate of the United States 
has heard with profound sorrow of the death of 
Lieut.-Col. David DuBose Gaillard, to whom the 
American people are under lasting obligations for 
the splendid service he rendered in overcoming some 
of the most perplexing difficulties in connection with 
the construction of the Panama Canal. 

"Resolved, That in further testimonial of our 
esteem the Secretary of the Senate be authorized to 
forward a copy of these resolutions to the family of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Gaillard." 

Colonel Gaillard was the author of Professional 
Papers No. 31, Corps of Engineers, "Wave Action in 
Relation to Engineering Structures. ' ' 

As a tribute to his memory the officers of the 
Corps of Engineers will wear the usual badge of 
mourning* for 30 days. 

[90946— C. of E.] 

By command of the Chief of Engineers: 

Edw. Burr, 
Colonel, Corps of Engineers. 



159 



SOME OFFICIAL LETTERS RELATING 

TO COLONEL GAILLARD'S 

EARLIER WORK 



SOME OFFICIAL LETTERS RELATING TO 
COLONEL GAILLARD'S EARLIER WORK 

THE ADJUTANT GENERAL TO THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS 

Headquarters of the Army. 
7137, A. G. 0. 1894. 

Adjutant General's Office, 
Washington, May 17, 1894. 
To the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army. 

Sir: The Major-General commanding the Army 
directs me to acknowledge the receipt, through your 
reference of the 10th inst., of an interesting and 
valuable paper prepared by First Lieut. D. D. Gail- 
lard, Corps of Engineers, embracing a description of 
the country, roads, trails, water and grass, etc., along 
the Mexican Boundary Line between the Rio Grande 
and the Pacific; with maps accompanying; and to 
say that the thanks of the Army are due to the Engi- 
neer Department for this valuable information. 
Very respectfully, 

Geo. D. Ruggles, Adj. -Gen. 

THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR 

Office of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army. 
Washington, D. C, Nov. 14, 1896. 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the accompany- 
ing copy of letter of November 3, 1896, from Capt. D. 
D. Gaillard, Corps Engs., enclosing his report of re- 
sults of preliminary examination of Portland Chan- 
nel (Canal) Alaska. 

163 



The duty assigned Captain Gaillard has been per- 
formed in a prompt and very satisfactory manner 
and his unusually interesting report is submitted for 
such action as may be deemed proper in the judg- 
ment of the Secretary of War. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

W. P. Craighill, 
Brig. Gen. Chief of Engs. 
Hon. Daniel S. Lamont, 

Secretary of War. 

THE SECRETARY OP STATE TO MEMBERS OF THE U. S. 
INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY COMMISSION 

Department of State. 

Washington, Nov. 28, 1896. 

Col. J. W. Barlow, 

Col. Corps Engs. U. S Army. 
Capt. D. D. Gaillard, 

Capt Corps. Engs. U. S. Army. 
A. T. Mosman, Esq., 

Asst. C. G. Survey, Commissioners, etc. 

Gentlemen: 

I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 
the 25th ult. submitting your final report touching 
the survey and re-marking of the boundary line be- 
tween the United States and Mexico, pursuant to 
the Convention of July 29, '82, and subsequently re- 
vised, and continued to Oct. 11, 1896. 

I wish to convey to you an expression of the De- 
partment's thanks for the manner in which you have 
discharged the onerous and delicate duties confided 
to you, and its appreciation of the character and in- 
telligence of the report. 

164 



I shall at the proper time lay it before the Presi- 
dent and take his direction in regard to its submis- 
sion to Congress at its approaching session. I shall 
notify the Secretary of War that the final report 
having been submitted, Colonel Barlow and Captain 
Gaillard are released from further service under the 
Department of State, except when it comes to read- 
ing the proof of the report the Department may de- 
sire to avail itself of their services in order that its 
technical character may be competently and ac- 
curately proof read. 

I am, gentlemen, 

Your obedient servant, 

(Signed) Bichard Olney. 



THE SECRETARY OP STATE TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR 

Department of State. 

Washington, Nov. 28, 1896. 

The Honorable, 

The Secretary of War. 

Sir: I have the honor to say that Col. I. W. Bar- 
low and Capt. D. D. Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, U. 
S. A., who were detailed by your department for 
service under this Department in connection with 
the survey and re-marking of the boundary line be- 
tween the United States and Mexico, pursuant to the 
Convention of July 29, 1882, as subsequently revised 
and continued to October 11, 1896, have submitted 
with their colleague, Mr. A. T. Mosman of the U. S. 
C. G. Survey, their final report. . . . 

It is a pleasure to say that these officers have not 
only discharged their important and delicate duties 

165 



with high ability, care and fidelity, but that they 
earned the thanks of this Department, which are 
hereby tendered, and which I trust you will ap- 
propriately make known to them. 
I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 
(Signed) Richard Olney. 

LETTERS FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE AND THE 
SECRETARY OF WAR TO THE CHIEF OF ENGINEERS 

War Department, Office of the Secretary, Washington 

Dec. 7, 1896. 
Sir: I take pleasure in transmitting herewith, 
copy of a letter just received from Secretary of 
State, acknowledging the receipt of a copy of your 
report on the preliminary examination of Portland 
Channel (Canal) Alaska and expressing his satis- 
faction with the manner in which the work was per- 
formed. 

Very respectfully, 
(Signed) Daniel S. Lamont, 

Secretary of War. 
Gen. W. P. Craighill, 
Chief of Engineers. 

Department of State, Washington. 

Dec. 4, 1896. 
The Honorable The Secretary of War. 

Sir: I have to acknowledge with thanks the re- 
ceipt of your letter of the 2nd inst., transmitting 
for the information of this Department, a copy of 
a report of Capt. D. D. Gaillard, Corps Engs. U. S. 
A., showing the results of a preliminary examination 

166 



of Portland Channel (Canal), Alaska. The Depart- 
ment is much pleased that the work has been so well 
and so intelligently accomplished. 
I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

(Signed) Richard Olney. 

LIEUT.-COL. JOHN BIDDLE TO LIEUT.-COL. EDGAR JADWIN 

Headquarters 3rd Battalion. 

Matanzas, Cuba, Jan. 2, 1899. 
To Lieut.-Col. Edgar Jadwin, 

3rd Battalion 3rd U. S. Volunteer Engineers. 
Sir: The Commanding General of the Spanish 
forces at Matanzas has requested me to express on 
the part of the Lieutenant-General Commanding 
Spanish forces in Cuba, and on the part of the offi- 
cers under his command at Matanzas their thanks 
and appreciation for the consideration and soldierly 
conduct shown them by the officers and men under 
your orders on the occasion of taking possession 
of this city by the United States forces on Jan. 1, 
1899. 

I desire also to state that the conduct of the Bat- 
talion, since its arrival here and under somewhat 
difficult conditions, has been in my opinion exem- 
plary and worthy of the reputation for discipline and 
efficiency already attained by the 3rd U. S. V. Engi- 
neers. 

Very respectfully, 

(Signed) John Biddle, 
Lieut.-Col. Chief Engs. 1st Army Corps. 



167 



LETTER FROM GEN. JOHN H. WILSON, CHIEF OF 
ENGINEERS 

Office Chief of Engineers, United States Army, 
Washington, D. C. 

Jan. 18, 1899. 
Col. David DuB. Gaillard, 

3rd Regt. U. S. Vol. Engrs., 

Camp Fornance, Macon, Georgia. 
Colonel : 

I have to acknowledge with thanks your courtesy 
in sending for the files of this office photographs of 
the admirable work done by your command. Such 
work indicates thorough organization, skill and dis- 
cipline. 

I congratulate you upon your regiment and I con- 
gratulate the regiment upon having so accomplished 
and soldierly a commanding officer. 

Yours very respectfully, 

(Signed) John M. Wilson, 
Brig.-Gen. Chief of Engrs., U. S. A. 

LETTER FROM CAPT. WALTER B. BARKER 

Office of Depot Quartermaster, Cienfuegos, Cuba. 

Cuba, Apr. 13, '99. 
Col. D. D. Gaillard, 

Commanding 3rd Reg. U. S. V. Engrs., 
Cienfuegos, Cuba. 
Colonel : 

It is due and I take great pleasure in saying to you 
that with an experience of over eight months as 
Depot Quartermaster, and in charge of Ocean and 
R. R. Transportation, your command has limited the 
accustomed requests and demands on my Depart- 

168 



ment to a minimum, while on the other hand it has 
rendered me continual material assistance. 

In common with all who are familiar with the ef- 
ficiency of your regiment I regret that the Govern- 
ment is to lose its service. 

With a grateful remembrance of your considera- 
tion to me personally as well as officially, believe me, 
Your friend, 

Walter B. Barker, 
Capt. & A. Q. M. U. S. Vols. Depot Quartermaster in 

Charge Ocean & R. R. Trans., Captain of the Port. 

LETTER FROM CAPT. F. W. WOODRING 

Office of Quartermaster, Detention Camp, Daufuski 
Island, S. C. 

May 4, 1899. 
Colonel Gaillard, 

Comdg. 3rd U. S. V. Engrs., 
Atlanta, Georgia. 
Sir: I take occasion to write and inform you that 
your regiment left its camp in the cleanest and best 
condition of any regiment that has been detained on 
the Island of Daufuski. 

I also wish to state that there was less confusion 
and delay in breaking camp and loading on to the 
river boats preparatory to moving than any other 
regiment. I know that this report will be gratify- 
ing to you. 

Respectfully, your obedient servant, 

(Signed) F. W. Woodring, 
Capt. A. Q. M., Asst. Depot Q. M. 



169 



LETTER FROM LIEUT.-GEN. ADNA R. CHAFFEE 

Office of the Chief of Staff, Washington. 

January 17, 1905. 
Major David DuB. Gaillard, 
Corps of Engineers, 
Washington, D. C. 
Sir: In order that your record at the War De- 
partment may fully set forth your attainments as 
an officer in special lines, I take occasion to thank 
you for your services while on a confidential mission 
for the War Department during the past year. 

The Chief of the Second Division, General Staff, 
remarks as follows: 

"The records of the division show that Major 
David DuB. Gaillard, Corps of Engineers, while on a 
confidential mission, displayed energy, discretion 
and ability in carrying out his instructions." 

The Military Secretary has been instructed to file 
with your efficiency record a copy of this communica- 
tion. 

Very respectfully, 

(Signed) Adna R. Chaffee, 
Lieut.-General, Chief of Staff. 



170 



CHRONOLOGY AND 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHRONOLOGY OF DAVID DuBOSE GAIL- 
LARD 



Sept. 4, 1859. Born at Fulton, Sumter Coun- 

ty, S. C. 

July 1, 1880, to U. S. Military Academy, West 

June 15, 1884. Point, N. Y. 

June 15, 1884. Graduated from U. S. Military 

Academy. 

June 15, 1884. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant 

of Engineers. 

Sept. 30, 1884, to Engineer School of Applica- 
April 18, 1887. tion, Willets Point, N. Y. On 
duty with Battalion of Engi- 
neers. 

April 18, 1887. Graduated from Engineer 

School of Application, Willets 
Point, N. Y. 

April 9, 1887, to Assistant to the officer in 

Nov. 6, 1891. charge of the river and harbor 

improvements in Florida, with 

station at Jacksonville and St. 

Augustine. 

Oct. 6, 1887. Married to Katherine Ross 

Davis of Columbia, S. C, at 
Winnsboro, S. C. 

173 



Oct. 22, 1887. Commissioned 1st Lieutenant 

of Engineers. 

Sept. 30, 1891, to Member of the International 
Nov. 28, 1896. Boundary Commission, for the 

survey and the re-marking of 
the boundary between the 
United States and Mexico, 
west of the Rio Grande. 

Feb. 14, 1895, to In local charge of defensive 

Oct. 10, 1895. works at Fort Monroe, Va. 

Oct. 25, 1895. Commissioned Captain of 

Engineers. 

Oct. 11, 1895, to Assistant, in local charge of 

Dec. 20, 1895. Washington Aqueduct. 

Dec. 20, 1895, to In charge of Washington 

May 3, 1898. Aqueduct, and of works for in- 

creasing water supply of 
Washington, D. C. 

Aug. 17, 1896, to Survey of Portland Channel 
Nov. 13, 1896. (Canal), Alaska. 

June 10, 1898. Engineer officer on the Staff of 

Maj.-Gen. Jas. F. Wade, 
United States Volunteers, at 
Tampa, Fla., and Chickamau- 
ga, Tenn. 

June 7, 1898. Commissioned Colonel, Third 

Regiment United States Volun- 
teer Engineers. 

June 11, 1898, to In command of Third Regi- 
May 17, 1899. ment of United States Volun- 

teer Engineers at Jefferson 

174 



Feb. 10, 1899, to 
April 5, 1899. 

May 17, 1899. 



May 22, 1899, to 
July 21, 1899. 



July 21, 1899, to 
March 6, 1901. 

March 9, 1901, to 
June 6, 1903. 



June 6, 1903, to 
August 15, 1903. 



Aug. 15, 1903, to 
May 18, 1904. 

Aug. 15, 1903, to 
Oct. 15, 1903. 

Oct, 15, 1903, to 
Jan. 9, 1904. 



Barracks, Mo., Lexington, Ky., 
Macon and Atlanta, Ga., in the 
United States, and at Matan- 
zas, Cienfuegos, and Pinar del 
Rio, in Cuba. 

Chief Engineer, Department of 
Santa Clara, Cuba. 

Honorably mustered out of 
service with Regiment, at Fort 
MacPherson, Ga. 

Served as assistant in connec- 
tion with Washington Aque- 
duct and increasing water sup- 
ply of Washington, D. C. 

Assistant to Engineer Commis- 
sioner, District of Columbia. 

In charge of river and harbor 
improvements on Lake Supe- 
rior, with station at Duluth, 
Minn. 

On special duty at Headquar- 
ters, Department of the 
Columbia, Vancouver Bar- 
racks, Wash. 

Member of General Staff 
Corps. 

Asst. to Chief of Staff, Depart- 
ment of the Columbia, Van- 
couver Barracks, Wash. 

Chief of Staff, Department of 
the Columbia, Vancouver Bar- 
racks, Wash. 
175 



Jan. 15, 1904, to 
May 18, 1901. 

March 25, 1904, to 
Oct. 15, 1904. 



April 23, 1904. 

Nov. 1, 1904, to 
Nov. 13, 1904. 

Nov. 14, 1904, to 
March 23, 1905. 

March 23, 1905, to 
March 22, 1907. 

March 23, 1905, to 
Oct. 6, 1906. 

Oct. 6, 1906, to 
Feb. 21, 1907. 



March 22, 1907. 



April 1, 1907, to 
June 30, 1908. 



Asst. to Chief of Staff, North- 
ern Division, Saint Louis, Mo. 

Engineer officer, Northern 
Division, Saint Louis, Mo. 
(Staff of Maj. Gen. J. C. 
Bates.) 

Commissioned Major of Engi- 
neers. 

Special duty, Headquarters of 
the Northern Division, Saint 
Louis, Mo. 

Under instruction at Army 

War College, Washington, D. 

C. 

Member General Staff Corps. 

On duty with General Staff 
Corps, Washington, D. C. 

Asst. to Chief of Staff, Expedi- 
tion to Cuba, Chief of Military 
Information Division, Army of 
Cuban Pacification, Marianao, 
Cuba. 

Member of the Isthmian Canal 
Commission. Director of the 
Panama Eailroad. 

Supervisory Engineer, in 
charge of dredging harbors, of 
building breakwaters, and of 
all excavation in the canal 
prism, except that incidental 
to lock and dam construction. 



176 



July 1, 1908, to Division Engineer, Central 

Dec. 5, 1913. Division — Gatun to Pedro Mi- 

guel, including Culebra (now 
Gaillard) Cut. 

April 11, 1909. Commissioned Lieutenant-Col- 

onel of Engineers. 

July 26, 1913. Stricken with illness at Cule- 

bra, which proved fatal. 

Aug. 14, 1913. Arrived in the United States 

from Panama. 

Dec. 5, 1913. Died at Johns Hopkins Hos- 

pital, Baltimore, Md. 

Dec. 8, 1913. Buried in Arlington National 

Cemetery, Arlington, Va. 



177 



BOOKS, ARTICLES AND REPORTS BY DAVID 
DuBOSE GAILLARD 



REPORTS CONTAINED IN ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE 
CHIEF OF ENGINEERS— ALSO SPECIAL REPORTS. 



Year 


Vol. Page 


Subject 


Date 


1888 


2 1144 to 1151 


Survey of Saint Augustine Har- 
bor, Fla. 


11/12/87 


1888 


2 1104 to 1106 


Improvement of Pease River, 
Fla. 


5/2/88 


1889 


2 1317 to 1323 


Cost of stability of jetties of 


11/20/88 



1889 2 1354 to 1355 

1889 2 1356 to 1357 

1889 2 1361 to 1364 

1890 2 1571 to 1577 

1891 3 1632 to 1639 

1896 6 3905 to 3941 

1897 6 3991 to 4023 

1897 4 3487 to 3498 

1898 6 3642 to 3650 



various cross-sections, and force 
of breaking waves. Sub't'd to 
Board of Engineers on improv- 
ing St. Augustine Harbor. 
Examination of Homosassa 1/11/89 
River, Fla. 

Examination of Crystal River, 1/12/89 
Fla. 

Examination of Ocklawaba 1/25/89 
River, Fla. 

Construction of groins, propor- 6/30/90 
tions, strength and cost of con- 
crete and wave action in works 
for improving St. Augustine 
Harbor, Fla. 

On wave action at St. Augus- 6/12/91 
tine, Fla. 

Washington Aqueduct and in- 7/17/96 
creasing water supply of Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

Maintenance and repair of Wash- 7/17/97 
ington Aqueduct and increasing 
the water supply of Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

Preliminary examination of 11/3/96 
Portland Channel (Canal), 
Southeast Alaska. 

Filtration of Water Supply of 1/19/98 
the District of Columbia. 

178 



Year Vol. Page Subject 

1898 1 in 2 parts Report of Boundary Commis- 
sion upon survey and re-mark- 
ing of the boundary between 
the U. S. and Mexico west of 
the Rio Grande, 1891-1896. 



1899-1900 Report of Operations of the Engineer De- 
partment of the District of Columbia for 
year ending June 30, 1900, pp. 13-21. 
Report to Engineer Commissioner District 
of Columbia by Assistant in charge. 

1S99 Catalogue of maps, plans, etc., deposited in 

the office of Chief of Engineers U. S. Army, 
by Col. David DuB. Gaillard, 3rd U. S. Vol. 
Engineers, now on file in Army War College, 
Washington, D. C. (Published in Third U. 
S. Vol. Engineers' Year Book, 1903, pp. 65- 
100.) 



Date 
Pub- 
lished 
at Gov- 
ernment 
Printing 
Office in 
1898. 
8/1/00 



1900 8 5126 to 5192 



1901 1 



71 to 73 



1901 4 2821 to 2906 

1902 3 2001 to 2042 

Part 

1903 2 1791 to 1831 
(Appendix K K ) 

1903 1 464 to 475 



Report of Board of Officers of 
the Corps of Engineers and or 
Architects to consider certain 
designs which had been submit- 
ted for a memorial bridge across 
the Potomac River, Washington 
to Arlington. (Publisehd as 
House Doc. No. 578, 56th Cong., 
1st Sess.) (Col. Gaillard was a 
member of this board.) 

Digest of the services of Colonel 
Gaillard in connection with the 
Spanish War, April, 1898, to 
May, 1899. (Also other serv- 
ices rendered by Third U. S. 
Vol. Engineers, pp. 59, 90-91.) 

Improvement of rivers and 
harbors on Lake Superior. 

Improvement of rivers and 
harbors on Lake Superior. 

Improvement of rivers and 
harbors on Lake Superior. 

Improvement of rivers and har- 
bors on Lake Superior. 



3/28/00 



10/1/01 



7/13/01 
7/20/02 

7/18/03 
7/18/03 



179 



Year 
1904 



1905 



1906 



Subject Date 

Professional Papers No. 31 Corps Engi- 
neers. Wave Action in Relation to Engi- 
neering Structures. Supt. of Documents 
Government Printing Office. 

Effect of wave action at certain harbors 7/15/05 
on Lake Michigan. Letter . . . trans- 
mitting . . . report of effect of wave 
action as affecting harbors at Ludington, 
Mich., and Manitowoc, Two Rivers, Racine, 
Kenosha and Sheboygan, Wis. (Washing- 
ton Govt. Printing Office, 1905; 59th Cong. 
1st Sess. House Doc. 62.) 

Report of examination and survey of 9/5/06 
Duluth Harbor, Minn. Report signed by 
Chas. E. L. B. Davis, D. D. Gaillard, W. V. 
Judson and A. MacKenzie. (Washington 
Govt. Printing Offie, 1906, 13 p. 23 cm., 59th 
Cong. 2nd Sess. House Doc. 82.) 



REPORTS CONTAINED IN ANNUAL REPORTS OF ISTHMIAN 
CANAL COMMISSION 

Report as Chief of Department of Excavation and 
Dredging, Isthmian Canal Commission in Annual 
Report for the year ending June 30th, 1907 (U. S. 
60th Congress, 1st session, 1907-8, Senate documents, 
Vol. 10), Appendix A., pp. 39-53. 

Report as Chief of Department of Excavation and 
Dredging, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual 
Report for the year ending June 30th, 1908 (U. S. 
60th Congress, 2nd session, 1907-8, House documents, 
Volume 38), Appendix A, pp. 35-55. 

Report as Division Engineer in charge of Central 
Division, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual Re- 
port for the year ending, June 30th, 1909 (U. S. 61st 
Congress, 2nd session, 1909-10, House documents, 
Volume 33), Appendix C, pp. 37-90. 

180 



Report as Division Engineer in charge of Central 
Division, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual Re- 
port for the year ending June 30th, 1910 (U. S. 61st 
Congress, 3rd session, 1910-11, House documents, 
Volume 22), Appendix D, pp. 137-160. 

Report as Division Engineer in charge of Central 
Division, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual Re- 
port for the year ending June 30th, 1911 (U. S. 62nd 
Congress, 2nd session, 1911-12, House documents, 
volume 30), Appendix C, pp. 133-156. 

Report as Division Engineer in charge of Central 
Division, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual Re- 
port for the year ending June 30, 1912 (U. S. 62nd 
Congress, 3rd session, 1912-13, House documents, 
Volume 31), Appendix C, pp. 113-170. 

Report as Division Engineer in charge of Central 
Division, Isthmian Canal Commission, in Annual Re- 
port for the year ending June 30, 1913 (U. S. 63rd 
Congress, 2nd session, 1913-1914, House documents, 
Volume 28), Appendix C, pp. 139-160. 



GENERAL ARTICLES 

"Tidal Rise and Fall in Artesian Well, Fort 
Marion, Saint Augustine, Florida, ' ' prepared for the 
Saint Augustine (Fla.) Society for the Advance- 
ment of Science, October, 1889. 

' ' Notes and Sketch of Petrograph and Prehistoric 
System of Fortification encountered along line of 
Boundary Survey, United States and Mexico/' 
Bureau of Ethnology, August, 1893. 

181 



"The Papago of Arizona and Sonora," in the 
American Anthropologist, Washington, July, 1894, 
pp. 293-296. 

"A Gigantic Earthwork in New Mexico," in 
American Anthropologist, Washington, September, 
1896, pp. 293-6. 

"The Perils and Wonders of the True Desert," 
in the Cosmopolitan, N. Y., October, 1896, pp. 592- 
605. 

"The Washington Aqueduct and Cabin John 
Bridge," in the National Geographic Magazine, 
Washington, December, 1897, pp. 338-344. 

"Harbors on Lake Superior, particularly Duluth- 
Superior Harbor," in "The Transactions of the 
American Society of Civil Engineers, ' ' Vol. 54, Part 
A, being the first volume of the publications of the 
International Engineering Congress held under the 
auspices of the Society, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 3 to Oct. 
18, 1904 (pp. 262-296), Paper No. 13. 

"Culebra Cut and the Problem of the Slides." in 
Scientific American, N. Y., Nov. 9, 1912, p. 388. 



182 



INDEX 



Adamson, Hon. William C. Re- 
port of the Interstate Commerce 
Committee upon the work of 

Col. Gaillard 65 

Aiken, Hon. Wyatt 147 

Alaska boundary survey....l4, 25 
Arlington, Va. Burial of Col. 

Gaillard 145, 147, 149 

Army and Navy Journal. Edi- 
torial tribute to Col. Gail- 
lard 93-95 

Atlanta Constitution. Tribute 

to Col. Gailard 104 

Averill, Capt. Frank L 146 

Averill, Mrs. Frank L 146 

Babbitt, Col. Edwin B 146 

Remarks at the unveiling of 

the '84 West Point memorial 

tablet 155 

Baer, Lieut. Joseph A. Review of 
Col. Gaillard's treatise on wave 

action 140 

Baker, Charles Whiting. Letter 

to the New York Times....97-98 

Baltimore American. Comment 

upon Col. Gaillard's work.... 48 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard.. 104 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard, by 

Hon. L. M. Garrison 71 

Baltimore News. Comments upon 
prompt action of the House of 
Representatives 62-63 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard, 

104-105 
Barker, Capt. Walter B. Letter 

commending service of Third U. 

S. Volunteer Engineers. .168-169 

Barney, Lieut 146 

Bates, Ellen Foreword 

Bates, Lieut. -Gen. John C. 

Foreword, 147 

Praises Third U. S. Volunteer 

Engineers 16 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard..74-75 

Battle Creek, Mich., News. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 105-106 



Baumgardner, Lieut 146 

Beaumont, Tex., Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 106-107 

Biddle, Lieut-Col. John. Letter 
commending Third U. S. Volun- 
teer Engineers 167 

Bishop, Joseph Bucklin. Excerpt 
from "The Panama Gateway," 

44 
Black, Lieut. John W. Address 
at banquet of Third U. S. Vol- 
unteer Engineers, 1899 89-90 

Black, Col. William M 147 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard..79-82 

Boston Globe. Tribute to Col. 

Gaillard 107-108 

Bostwick, Dr. A. E Foreword 

Breckinridge, Hon. Henry S.. 146 
Bryce, Hon. James. Excerpt from 

his "South America" 44 

Quoted 104 

Buffalo Engineer. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 108 

Bunau-Varilla, Philippe Jean, 

27 

Burr, Col. Edward 147 

Byrnes, Hon. James F 147 

Cabell, Major D'R 146 

Camp Gaillard. Named 153 

Canal Record. Official order of 
Gen. Goethals upon death of 

Col. Gaillard 63-64 

Cedar Rapids, la., Gazette. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 108-109 

Chaffee, Lieut. -Gen. Adna R. 
Letter commending efficiency of 

Col. Gaillard 170 

Chicago Evening Post. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard 111-112 

Chicago Tribune. Tributes to 

Col. Gaillard 109-1 1 1 

Chittenden, Brig.-Gen. H. M. 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard 77 

Church of the Presidents 145 

Civil War. Gaillard's serving in 
Confederate Cause 9 

183 



Clark, Edward B 146 

Describes Gaillard home at 

Culebra 20 

Excerpt from an article in 

the St. Louis Times 46-48 

Clark, Mrs. Edward B 146 

Cleveland Leader. Tribute to 
Col. Gaillard 112-113 

Collier's Weekly. Editorial trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 102 

Columbia, 5. €., Record. Tribute 
to Col. Gaillard 113 

Confederate service. Gaillards 
in 9 

Cornish, Vaughan. Tribute to 
Col. Gaillard 101 

Cornwallis, Lord. Offer to Gen. 
Richard Richardson rejected 10 

Craighill, Brig.-Gcn. W. P. Let- 
ter 163-164 

Cuba. Work of Third U. S. Vol- 
unteer Engineers, 

15-17, 54, 128-129, 137 

Culebra Cut. Dimensions..30, 42 

—Drills 32 

Excavation, 

27-38, 41-48, 85-86, 105 

Geology 45 

Name changed to Gaillard 

Cut 108, 153-155 

—Slides 34-36, 42-44, 123-124 

Use of dynamite 33-34 

See also Panama Canal. 

Cushing, Dr. Harvey 21 

Davenport, la., Times. Tribute 
to Col. Gaillard 114 

"David and Goliath." Nicknames 
of D. D. Gaillard and W. L. 
Sibert at West Point....l3-14, 125 

Davis, Col. Henry C 12, 146 

Davis, Katherine Ross. See Gail- 
lard, Mrs. Katherine Ross Davis. 

Davis, R. Means. Assists D. D. 

Gaillard to enter West Point, 

12-14 

Dickinson, Hon. Jacob M. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 73-74 

DuBose, Anne 8 

DuBose, Capt. David St. Pierre 9 

DuBose, David St. Pierre. Grand- 
father of D. D. Gaillard 11 



DuBose, Isaac. Ancestor of D. D. 
Gaillard 8-9 

DuBose, Louis 8 

DuBose, Adjutant Samuel. An- 
cestor of D. D. Gaillard 8 

DuBose, Susan Richardson. See 
Gaillard, Susan Richardson Du- 
Bose. 

Dunlap, Rev. E. S 147 

Dynamite. Use in Panama Canal 
excavations 32-34 

Editorial appreciation of Col. 
Gaillard 93-132 

Engineering and Contracting. 
Editorial upon D. D. Gaillard 
as author 96-97 

Engineering News. Editorial up- 
on the death of Col. Gaillard, 
99-100 

Engineering Record. Editorial 
upon the death of Col. Gaillard, 

99 

Excavation of Panama Canal. See 
Panama Canal — Culebra Cut. 

Finley, Hon. David E 147 

Finley, Mrs. David E 147 

Foote, Col. Stephen M. Funeral 

of Col. Gaillard 145-150 

Gaillard as a soldier 51-54 

Foote, Mrs. Stephen M 146 

Frankfort, Ky., Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 114-115 

French machinery. Panama Ca- 
nal excavations 27-28 

French work upon Panama Ca- 
nal 122 

Gaillard, Capt. Alfred 9 

Gaillard, Daniel S 9 

Gaillard, Daniel W 9 

Gaillard, Col. David Dubose. An- 
cestry 7-11 

Birth 1 1, 63 

Attends Mount Zion Insti- 
tute 11 

Serves as clerk in store.... 12 

Enters competitive examina- 
tion for West Point 12 

Teaches classes at Mount Zion 

Institute _ 13 

Graduates with honors at 

West Point 13 



184 



— Commissioned Second Lieut, 
of Engineers 14 

— Officer, Service School of En- 
gineering, Willets Point 14 

— River and harbor work.. 14, 25 

— Married to Katherine Ross 
Davis 14 

— Member of the International 
Commn. for the establishment 
of the boundary between U. S. 
and Mexico 14,25 

— In charge of Washington Aq- 
ueduct 14, 25 

— Service in Spanish-American 
War 15 

— Service on the General Staff 
of the Army 19 

— Member of Isthmian Canal 

Commission 19, 26, 85 

— Service at Panama, 

19, 26-38, 64, 84-86 

—Home at Culebra 19-20, 82 

— Illness, 
20-21, 47-48, 94, 109-110, 125-126 

—Death 21 

— Funeral 145-150 

— Pallbearers 147 

— As a soldier 51-54 

— As an engineer 25-38 

— Author 96-97, 139 

— Bibliography of his writings, 

178 
— Characteristics, 

79, 84, 87-89, 101 

— Chronology 173 

— Denied the sight of completed 

Panama Canal 105-107, 113 

— Investigations of wave action 
upon engineering structures 17 
—Letter of Gen. A. R. Chaffee, 

commending efficiency 170 

— Memorial tablet, West Point, 

155 

— Moral influence 38 

— Official actions taken upon the 

death of Col. Gaillard 57-67 

— Official letters relating to Col. 
Gaillard's earlier work.. ..163-170 

—Personality 54, 59, 86, 135 

— Press comment upon his work, 
104-132 

185 



Resolutions upon his death, 

57-63 

Sketches of his life, 

11-21, 135-139, 157-158 

Tributes 71-90 

Gaillard, David St. Pierre. Son 

of D. D. Gaillard 11, 14 

Gaillard, Lieut. Edmund 9 

Gaillard, H. A 13 

Gaillard, Isaac 9 

Gaillard, John. Living 1363.. 7 

Gaillard, Hon. John 8 

Gaillard, Mrs. Katherine Ross 

Davis Foreword 

Letter to the Third U. S. Vol- 
unteer Engineer Assoc... 148-150 

—Tributes to 20, 67, 82 

Gaillard, Capt. Peter. Ancestor 
of D. D. Gaillard. Service in 

Revolutionary War 8 

Gaillard, Col. Peter C 9 

Gaillard, Pierre. Ancestor of D. 

D. Gaillard 8 

Gaillard, Capt. Richard 9 

Gaillard, Sergeant-Major Samuel 
Isaac. Father of D. D. Gail- 
lard 9, 11 

Gaillard, Susan Richardson Du- 
Bose. Mother of D. D. Gail- 
lard 11 

Gaillard, Judge Theodore 8 

Gaillard, Warren 9 

Gaillard Cut. Named, 

19, 108, 153-155 

See also Culebra Cut. 

Gaillard family 7-9, 11 

Gaillard School of Engineering. 

Proposed 117 

Gaillards educated at West 

Point 9 

Garrison, Hon. Lindley M., 

145-146 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard.... 71 

Geographical Journal. Tribute 

by Vaughan Cornish 101 

Gillett, Halbert P. David Du- 

Bose Gaillard, author 96-97 

Goethals, Licut.-Col. George W. 
Appointed member of Isthmian 

Canal Commission 26 

Divides work upon canal.. 28 



— Official order upon death of 

Col. Gaillard 63-64 

—Tribute to Col. Gaillard.. 72 
Gorgas, Major-Gen. W. C. Gail- 
lard as a friend 82-83 

Grove, Sergeant : 146 

Hamilton, Lieut 146 

Harding, Lieut-Col. Chester.. 147 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard.. 87 

Harper's Weekly. Review, bv 

Jos. A. Baer 140 

Hingham, M ass., Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 115-116 

Huguenot ancestry of Col. Gail- 
lard 7-8 

Huguenot memorial to Col. Gail- 
lard 156 

Human Factor. Editorial trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 103 

Isthmian Canal Commission. 

Appointed 26, 51 

Jadwin, Lieut. -Col. Edgar....l9, 23 

Gaillard as an engineer..25-38 

Jadwin, Mrs. Edgar 146 

Jefferson Barracks, Mo. Third 
U. S. Volunteer Engineers mus- 
tered into service 15, 130 

Johnson, Hon. Joseph T 147 

Jones, Constant E 146 

Kipling, Rudyard. Prophecy in 
regard to the U. S. Engineering 
Corps 102 

Kuhn, Lieut.-Col. Joseph E... 147 

Ladd, Col. E. F 146 

Laird, John A 128 

Lamont, Hon. Daniel S. Letter, 

166 
Landslides. See Culebra Cut. 

Langfitt, Col. William C 147 

Lanier memorial, erected by Hu- 
guenot Soc. of S. C 156 

Lee, Gen. W. H. F. Huguenot 

memorial to 156 

Leland, Prof 12 

Lever, Hon. Asbury F 147 

Lincoln, Hon. Robert T. Rules 
in favor of Gaillard in contro- 
versy over West Point appoint- 
ment 13 

Long, James A 146 



Los Angeles Tribune. Verses in 
memory of Col. Gaillard 116 

Loving Cup. Presented to Col. 
Gaillard 90 

McKim, Rev. Randolph H 147 

McMaster, Fleming. Gaillard 
serves as clerk in store of.... 12 

Mason, Dr. Charles 21 

Maury memorial, erected by the 

Huguenot Soc. of S. C 156 

Mearns, Lieut.-Col. Edgar A. 147 
Meridian, Miss., Star. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard 116-117 

Mexican boundary line. Gaillard 

a member of the Internationa! 

Commn 14 

Letter of Adj.-Gen. George 

D. Ruggles 163 

Letters of Hon. Richard 01- 

ney 164-166 

Mount Zion Institute 11-12 

Muscatine, la., Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 117-118 

Nation. Editorial tribute to Col. 
Gaillard 103 

National Geographic Magazine. 
Excerpt from "Battling with the 
Panama Slides," by W. J. Sho- 
walter 42-43 

Negro mutiny, Macon, Ga...S3, 138 
New Orleans. Times Democrat. 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard..ll8-119 
New York Herald. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 1 19-120 

New York Journal. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 121-122 

New York Sun. Tribute to Col. 

Gaillard 119 

New York Times. Letter of 

Charles Whiting Baker 97-98 

Sketch of Col. Gaillard, 

135-139 
New York Tribune. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 120 

New York World. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 121 

Nibben, M 146 

Olney, Hon. Richard. Letters, 

164-167 

Outlook. Editorial tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 102-103 



186 



Panama Canal. Cost of exca- 
vating 27-28, 

34, 37-38, 41, 94, 98, 105, 109 

Magnitude of work, 

41, 44-46, 66, 98 

— —Number of trains handled per 
day 30 

Plan of Pres. Roosevelt to 

secure competent engineers 51 

Twenty thousand workers 

stand at attention five minutes, 
at time of funeral of Col. Gail- 
lard 94 

Work assigned to Army En- 
gineers 19, 26 

See also Culebra Cut — Gail- 
lard Cut. 

Philadelphia Bulletin. Tribute 
to Col. Gaillard 122-124 

Philadelphia Public Ledger. 
Tribute of Major-Gen. G. VV. 
Goethals to Col. Gaillard.... 72 

Portland Channel, Alaska, 

14, 163-164, 166-167 

Portland, Ore., Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 124 

Press comments upon Col. Gail- 
lard 104-132 

Ragsdale, Hon. J. Willard.... 147 

Railway and Engineering Re- 
view. Editorial upon the death 
of Col. Gaillard 100 

Resolutions upon the death of 
Col. Gaillard 57-63 

Revolutionary War. Ancestors 
of Col. Gaillard serving in.. 8 

Richardson, Dorcas Neilson. An- 
cestor of D. D. Gaillard 11 

Richardson, Hon. J. S 12 

Richardson, Col. Ricbard. An- 
cestor of D. D. Gaillard 8, 10 

Richardson, Gen. Richard. An- 
cestor of D. D. Gaillard. Mem- 
ber of the Provincial Congress, 

10 

Rejects offer of Cornwallis, 

10 

Service in Revolutionary War, 

8, 10 

Service in the Cherokee wars, 

9 



Roosevelt, Hon. Theodore. Ap- 
points Isthmian Canal Commis- 
sion 26, 51-52 

Plan to secure competent en- 
gineers for Panama Canal.. 51 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard.... 72 

Ruggles, Adj. -Gen. George D. 

Letter 163 

St. Louis. D. D. Gaillard comes 

to 128 

St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 125-126 

St. Louis Republic. Tribute to 

Col. Gaillard 126-131 

St. Louis Times. Description of 
Gaillard home at Culebra.... 20 

Excerpt from article by E. B. 

Clark 46 

St. Mark's Parish. Citizens pre- 
sent Gen. Richardson with serv- 
ice of plate 10 

Shafter, Major-Gen. William Ru- 

fus 15 

Showalter, William Joseph. Ex- 
cerpt from "Battling with the 

Panama Slides" 42-43 

Sibert, Brig. -Gen. W. L. Ap- 
pointed member of Isthmian 

Canal Commn 26 

Returns to Panama 146 

Roommate of D. D. Gaillard 

at West Point 13 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard..84-86 

Smith, Hon. Ellison D 147 

Smith, Mrs. Ellison D 147 

Smith, Rev. Roland Cotton.... 147 

Smith, Rev. Williamson 147 

South Carolina. Senator pre- 
sents testimonials to Col. Gail- 
lard 58-61 

Spanish-American War.. 15, 51-54 
Spencer, Brig.-Gcn. E. J...128, 146 
Springfield Daily Republican. 
Tribute to Col. Gaillard.. 124-125 
Steam Shovel and Dredge. Edi- 
torial upon the death of Col. 

Gaillard 100-101 

Stevens, John F. Resignation as 
cbief engineer, Panama Canal, 

26 

Stimson, Hon. Henry L. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard 73 



187 



Styer, Col. Henry D 146 

Taft, Hon. William H. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard 72 

Taylor, Lieut.-Col. Harry 147 

Taylor, Mrs. Harry 146 

Third United States Volunteer 
Engineers. Committee appoint- 
ed to publish memorial to Col. 

Gaillard Foreword 

Letter of Capt. F. W. Wood- 
ring, commending service.... 169 

Letter of Capt. Walter B. 

Barker, commending service, 

168-169 

- — Letter of Col. John Biddle, 

commending its conduct in 

Cuba 167 

—Letter of Gen. John M. Wil- 
son, commending work 168 

—Record 15-17, 75 

Target practice 53 

Tillman, Hon. Benjamin R... 147 
Tillman, Mrs. Benjamin R... 147 
U. S. Chief of Engineers. Offi- 
cial order upon death of Col. 

Gaillard 65 

Corps of Engineers. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard in Professional 

Papers 95 

Prophecy of Rudyard 

Kipling concerning 102 

FIouse of Representatives. 

Resolution upon the death of 

Col. Gaillard 61-63, 158-159 

Interstate Commerce Com- 
mittee. Report of the work 
of Col. Gaillard, by William C. 

Adamson 65 

Senate. Resolution upon the 

death of Col. Gaillard..57-61, 159 
Van Ornum, Prof. J. L. Tribute 

to Col. Gaillard 88-89 

Wade, Gen. James F 15 

Walke, Col. Willoughby. Tribute 
to Col. Gaillard 87-88 



Washington, Martha. Huguenot 
memorial tablet erected to.. 156 

Washington (City) Aqueduct, 

14,25 

Washington Times. Tributes to 
Col. Gaillard 131-132 

Wave Action upon engineering 
structures 17, 139 

Weber, Frank J. Sounds "Taps," 

148-149 

West Point. Gaillards educated 

at 9 

Training 17 

Class of '84 Bulletin. Cu- 

lebra Cut 41 

Whaley, Hon. Richard S 147 

Willetts Point, N. Y. D. D. 
Gaillard, officer in Service School 
of Engineering 14 

Williamson, Sidney B 28 

Wilmington, Del, Journal. Trib- 
ute to Col. Gaillard 132 

Wilson, Brig.-Gcn. James H. 
Commends Third U. S. Volun- 
teer Engineers 16 

Describes Col. Gaillards in- 
vestigations of wave action upon 

engineering structures 17 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard. .75-77 

Wilson, Brig.-Gcn. John M... 147 

Letter commending work of 

Third U. S. Volunteer Engi- 
neers 168 

Tribute to Col. Gaillard.. 78 

Wilson, Hon. Woodrow....l45-146 
Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow.... 145-146 
Wood, Major-Gen. Leonard, 

137, 146 
Woodring, Capt. F. W. Letter 
commending Third U. S. Vol- 
unteer Engineers 169 

Wotherspoon, Major-Gen. W. W. 
Tribute to Col. Gaillard 78 



188 



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